The novels of the so-called “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie are subject to change for reasons political correctness.

According to the British Telegraph, HarperCollins has edited some of the digital editions.including Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, correction of texts or complete removal of others to exclude links and expressions that may be offensive in today’s audience.

In particular, these changes affect digital versions of new titles released after 2020 and prevent descriptions or links to nationality or race which can be taken as offensive, especially in the case of characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside of the UK.

Modifications of books published between 1920 – 1976 (the year of Christie’s death) are associated with changes in the internal monologues of the narrators. For example, in Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot describes another character as “JewOf course,” link removed in new version.

In the same book, the woman is described as “Gypsychanged to “young woman” and all references to gypsies removed from the text.

In the revised version of the short story collection Miss Marple’s Last Things and Two Other Stories, the word native (native) turns into local (native).

In the text, where the servant is described as “black and smiling”, the character is now only referred to as nodding, without specifically mentioning his race. And in the 1937 novel Crime on the Nile, it is mentioned “Nubians» (ss Nubians, a people who lived along the Nile) have been removed.

Word black person (Negro) was removed in the revised editions both in Christie’s prose and her characters’ dialogue.

A new edition of the 1964 novel A Caribbean Mystery removed Miss Marple’s idea that the smiling West Indian hotel clerk had “such beautiful white teeth”, as well as similar references.

It is noted that such corrections in books Roald Dahlauthor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Big Friendly Giant and Matilda, etc. Ian Flemingthe “father” of the fictional James Bond.

Source: Telegraph/CNN.