Anyone who holds copyright can alter a work as they please, especially when dead authors are not around to object. Publishers are choosing to sanitize their literary icons on their own. These rewrites are not censorship, at least not in the legal sense. When publishers defile literature, you know the writing is on the wall. If it seems like small potatoes, you may be missing the big picture. Seuss and Mark Twain have been curbed in other ways. Christie joins Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming on the list of dead literary icons whose works have met similar fates in recent weeks. HarperCollins, their publisher, is removing references to physique, race and ethnicity in new editions of Miss Marple and selected Poirot novels. Last week The Telegraph reported that Agatha Christie’s novels are being sanitized for re-release. In 2023, we are social justice nihilists, driven by cultural self-hate and morally panicked about any representation of historical prejudice. It expresses narratives that tell societies who they are. Literature, along with other popular arts like music and movies, is called “culture” for a reason. Which is precisely why her books are ideal for such treatment. Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time.
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