Agatha Christie’s novels are the latest works to be rewritten to eliminate verbiage that has been deemed insensitive or inappropriate, it has emerged.
Several of the passages in the author’s Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries have reportedly been reworked or stripped altogether from new editions of the books.
Publisher HarperCollins eliminated text containing ‘insults or references to ethnicity’, as well as descriptions of certain characters’ physiques, The Telegraph reported.
Ms Christie’s works are the latest to undergo politically correct rewriting. It comes after books by Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Enid Blyton were edited over sensitivity concerns.
New editions of Ms Christie’s novels, reviewed by the newspaper, showed that editors have made ‘scores of changes’ to her books.
The novels, penned between 1920 and 1976, were stripped of sections of ‘unsympathetic’ dialogue, apparent insults and character descriptions.
For example, the word ‘Oriental’ has been removed from her 1937 mystery Death on the Nile, which follows sleuth Hercule Poirot as he investigates a murder on a luxury cruise.
The publisher changed dialogue of character of Mrs Allerton, who was complaining about pestering children.
The original text said: ‘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 rewritten version reportedly reads: ‘They come back and stare, and stare. And I don’t believe I really like children.’
source dailymail.co.uk
