Agatha Christie Rewritten

In the politically correct world we live in it is now becoming the norm to have sensitivity readers trawl through our favour author's books of yesteryear and correct them for today's sensitive readers. Publishers it would seem, are happy to rewrite not just a word here, or a sentence there, but whole paragraphs are being transformed so as to not offend the reader.

But would it not be a less heavy handed way to alert potential, and future readers of the works of Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie and Roald Dahal’s by including a Content Warning at the beginning of every said offensive book, to the fact it might contain language used in another era that is now considered derogatory?

It may be unpleasant to know these authors used such language, back in the day, but to assume that it’s now okay to rewrite an author’s work with impunity, just astounds me. Correct me but couldn’t people choose to simply not read these authors and their work?

But, of course, it’s not really about the language, and more about continued sales of these dead author’s works well beyond the grave, that bothers the bottom line of publishers, not the delicate sensitivity of potential readers. And, to be honest, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves, are these people likely to read any of these authors anyway?

Personally, I’ve never read a Roald Dahl book and, I’m not likely to. They were never aimed at me to begin with. But I do think that in rewriting his works, they are denying readers the truth of what the man wrote, whether we view it now as being acceptable, or not.