London (EFE).- Agatha Christie’s books are being rewritten by her publisher, HarperCollins, to adapt them to “modern sensibilities”, the “Sunday Telegraph” revealed this Sunday.
The mysteries of inspector Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple thus join the wave of reissues to make them more acceptable to new readers who have also caught up with Roald Dahl’s books or the James Bond adventures written by Ian Fleming.
Entire passages of the works of the “queen of crime” have been removed or rewritten in the new editions of those novels that are being prepared or that have been published since 2020, the Sunday newspaper notes.
A commission of “sensitive readers” reviewed Christie’s works to ensure that “ethnic slurs or references” have been removed, as well as physical descriptions of some of the characters.
The newspaper cites the example of several deleted comments about the teeth and physique of people who appear in the books, especially in cases where the protagonists of the novels meet people outside Britain.
Internal monologues from Marple and Poirot have been cut and references to a character’s revulsion for children have been modified.
Terms removed from Agatha Christie’s books
Vocabulary has also been altered to remove the term “Oriental,” while the racial allusion to a black servant has been removed, among other examples cited by the newspaper.
HarperCollins, according to the “Telegraph”, has created new editions of all the adventures of Miss Marple, as well as a selection of Poirot novels.
The company Agatha Christie Limited, run by the author’s great-grandson James Prichard, manages the rights to her works for literature and film.