Paizo, who publishes a great series of mostly reprinted classics called Planet Stories, have a blog entry describing and explaining the racism present in many pulp classics. In part James Sutter, Planet Stories Editor says:

“In the past, publishers uncomfortable with content sometimes cut drastically from older books (especially Kline) in order to sanitize for their new era. We say: let the works stand on their own and speak for themselves. H. P. Lovecraft used the N-word. Robert E. Howard had some (today) scandalously negative portrayals of non-white races. Yet this is history, and to redact history is to lose a vital part of how we got to where we are.”

Read the rest of this excellent editorial here.