It’s been two days since Agatha Christie joined the ranks of Roald Dahl and Ian Flemming to receive massive re-edits to her published works. The campaign is set to eliminate or reword terms and phrases found in Christie’s novels that could possibly be interpreted as offensive to readers of the 21st century.
HarperCollins is currently in the process of changing swaths of Christie’s text published between 1920 and 1976. That includes novels like Death on the Nile, A Caribbean Mystery, and The Mysterious Affair at Styles from her Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple murder mystery series. The Telegraph broke the story.
The controversial practice has become something of a staple in modern publishing, but Christie is no stranger to the situation. Her 1939 novel And Then There Were None was originally published under a different title, one that included a racist slur. The slur is so offensive and its alteration so contested that the situation is splitting readers down the middle on Twitter: those who stand by HarperCollins’ re-edits (and the edits to the novel’s original title) and those who oppose it.
On the surface, the reaction appears to be as follows.
Farther in the weeds are also readers who agree that “sensitivity edits” such as these — as well as the alteration of And Then There Were None’s original title — have merit.
The argument found within situations such as these ranges from those who believe any and all censorship should be rejected to those who think “wokeness” is the culprit. However, as one Twitter user put it — this move by HarperCollins “predates woke.”
The following tweet contains offensive language that We Got This Covered does not support or condone. We have chosen to include it here for contextual purposes.
Twitter user @SIfill_ expertly exhibits duality of opinions often found in situations such as these, with said duality sometimes co-existing inside a single person.
As one of the most prolific and best-selling authors of all time with upward of two billion copies of her works sold, this recent re-examination of Christie’s intellectual property by HarperCollins is a signal that the publishing industry is not only aware of these modern times we live in but also willing to respond to it. As has been the case since the dawn of time, decisions such as these are fraught with debate.