Agatha Christie Latest Author to Be Rewritten by Progressive Sensitivity Readers
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The war waged by publishers on author intent continues with the works of Agatha Christie.
Passages related to a person’s physique, race, or ethnicity have been altered to accord to modern sensibilities, a new report from the Telegraph revealed. Christie, the mystery writer extraordinaire, now joins an ever-growing list of authors whose books are being retouched by sensitivity readers. That list also includes Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and R.L. Stine.
In Death on the Nile, the character of Mrs. Allerton complains about a group of children, saying: “they come back and stare, and stare, and their eyes are simply disgusting, and so are their noses, and I don’t believe I really like children.” The reference to their eyes and noses being disgusting is now missing from the text. The word “Oriental” has been removed in other instances. And a black servant, originally described as grinning, is now described as neither black nor smiling but simply as “nodding.”
In A Caribbean Mystery, the amateur detective’s appreciation of a West Indian hotel worker’s “lovely white teeth” has been removed. Similar references to “beautiful teeth” are also stripped. A character described as having “a torso of black marble such as a sculptor would have enjoyed” no longer has that feature. And a “Nubian boatman,” referring to the Egyptian ethnic group, is now just a “boatman.”
Other Agatha Christie novels feature similar alterations. Hercule Poirot no longer calls another character “a Jew, of course.” References to gypsies have been stripped throughout. An entire passage where a character fails to see a black woman in some bushes is now gone.
An Indian judge’s “Indian temper” is no longer modified that way. “Natives” are now locals and the word “n*****” is out of the revised editions.
It is not the first time Agatha Christie’s books have been revised, the Telegraph reported, but the scale of alterations appears novel.
The publisher of Agatha Christie’s novels is HarperCollins. The new editions are set to be released or have been released since 2020. Affected novels include the entire run of Miss Marple mysteries and selected Poirot novels. The Telegraph was told by insiders that the publisher employs the services of sensitivity readers.
Authorial intent and the author’s voice has been frequently cited by critics to slam such alterations. These changes are particularly complicated to make after the author’s death.
Roald Dahl, whose children’s books were changed by Puffin Books recently, rewrote the Oompa-Loompas himself in the late 1960s after the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
After intense backlash, the publisher of Roald Dahl relented to a degree, allowing the original editions to be sold side-by-side with the revised ones. “Readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer,” read a statement from the publisher.
