Agatha Christie’s British books, published by HarperCollins, have been modified to respond to “modern sensibilities,” the Telegraph newspaper advances. The English writer is the author of the stories of Miss Marpple and Hercule Poirot.
The stories of these famous characters will have passages from their original texts modified or even deleted in new editions of HarperCollins. According to the British publication, which claims to have had access to the digital versions of the revised titles, a passage in which a British tourist vents his frustrations on a group of children or comments about the physical appearance of the characters are examples of parts of the text. which were removed References to “natives” have been removed and replaced with the word “locals”.
Passages with descriptions, insults and references to ethnic groups will also have been removed, especially in relation to characters that the protagonists know outside the United Kingdom. In the book The mysterious case of Styles, from 1920, removed a sentence in which Poirot refers to a character by saying: “He is a Jew, of course.” References to gypsies were also omitted from this book. The term “oriental”, referring to characters, will have been deleted
The author’s own narrative, in monologues by Miss Marple or Poirot, will have been altered. Parts of the dialogue from unsympathetic characters were also cut. EITHER Telegraph give an example from the book death on the nile 1937, a Poirot mystery set on a river cruise. The character Mrs. Allerton refers to a group of children who were teasing her by saying, “They come back and look and look and her eyes are nasty and her nose is nasty and I don’t think she likes kids.” The new version says: “They go back and look, look. And I don’t think she likes children.”
HarperCollins has produced new editions of the entire Miss Marple book series, as well as some of Poirot’s works. Some of these new editions of the author’s work are ready to be released, others have already begun to hit the market in 2020. How can it be affected, according to the British newspaper.
Reader sensitivity is a recent phenomenon in the publishing world and has grown in the last two years. Their job is to screen recent and old posts for offensive language or descriptions with the aim of improving diversity in the publishing industry, according to The Guardian newspaper, adding that some of these people are paid very low wages.
The newspaper recalls that the content of Agatha Christie’s work had never been altered. With the exception of the 1939 book And then there was none, whose first title was changed in 1977 for containing a racist term. The copyright for the author’s books and films belongs to Agatha Christie Limited, managed by James Prichard, the writer’s grandson. Neither the company nor the publisher responded to The Guardian’s request for comment.
Agatha Christie wrote her works between 1920 and 1976 and is the most recent author to republish her works according to the standards of what is described as a “current sensibility”, since the books of Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming have also been modified. recently. The writer’s works continue to be popular today. Over several years they were adapted for TV movies, series and cinema. The most recent was “Death on the Nile”, which hit theaters in 2022.
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This article was updated at 3:30pm with information on reader sensitivity explained by The Guardian newspaper.
Source: Observadora
