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The publishing industry has been mired in debate in recent years about editing older books to remove content that could be deemed offensive.
Even the prime minister became involved in February after the publisher Puffin Books hired sensitivity readers to rewrite parts of Roald Dahl’s books to ensure they “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”. The development prompted Rishi Sunak to say that publishers “shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words”.
Jacqueline Wilson waded into the conversation on Monday, saying that making changes to children’s books was sometimes justified and that she would not write one of her past novels today because of its controversial content. Below, we look at what other authors have said on the topic.
Margaret Atwood: ‘If you don’t like it, read something else’
Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight in March, the Canadian author commented on the Dahl controversy: “Good luck with Roald Dahl. You’re just really going to have to replace the whole book if you want things to be nice.
“But this started a long time ago; it was the ‘Disneyfication’ of fairytales. What do I think of it? I’m with Chaucer, who said: ‘If you don’t like this tale, turn over the page and read something else.’”
Irvine Welsh: ‘I found it a positive experience’
The Trainspotting author said he had worked with a sensitivity reader for the first time when writing his 2022 novel The Long Knives, which deals with transgender issues. He wrote on Twitter: “I was initially very hostile, regarding this as censorship. However, my experience with the trans reader was highly positive.
“The reader was highly supportive of what I was trying to do: balanced, thoughtful and informative, and the book is infinitely better as a result. I found it a positive experience. Certainly, there was none of the crackpot vitriol you see on all sides of the debate on here.”
Charlie Higson: ‘Times and sensitivities change’
Higson, an author of young adult fiction including the first five Young Bond novels, said sensitivity reading is “nothing new”.
In March, he told the Guardian: “I don’t think it was a sensitivity reader who insisted on the change to the original title of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.” The original title included a racial slur.
“Times change and sensitivities change, and thankfully, we now accept that some things in older books can be very upsetting to some modern readers and a more diverse readership,” he said.
Salman Rushdie: ‘This is absurd censorship’
Commenting on the Dahl debate in February, Rushdie described the editing of his books as “absurd censorship”. On Twitter, he wrote that Puffin and the late author’s estate “should be ashamed”.
Despite his defence of Dahl’s works, Rushdie said he was “no angel” and that he was “a self-confessed antisemite, with pronounced racist leanings.”
Philip Pullman: ‘Let him go out of print’
Pullman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in February: “If it does offend us, let him go out of print.
“What are you going to do about them? All these words are still there; are you going to round up all the books and cross them out with a big black pen?
“Read Phil Earle, SF Said, Frances Hardinge, Michael Morpurgo, Malorie Blackman. Read Mini Grey, Helen Cooper, Jacqueline Wilson, Beverley Naidoo.
“Read all these wonderful authors who are writing today who don’t get as much of a look-in because of the massive commercial gravity of people like Roald Dahl.”
I tend to agree with this. Why not have multiple editions of a book available, one that is the original and the other that has received some edits to reflect modern values?
I've been reading HP Lovecraft recently. A lot of his stories are horrendously racist, and I've found that more uncomfortable to read than the actual horror. I'd have quite happily purchased a version (rather than downloading a free ebook) that had received a light touch of editing, of the kind that removed the racist slurs while keeping everything else intact. I genuinely can't see that the actual story or vibes of "The Rats in the Walls" would have been any different if the cat had a different name.
I also find it bizarre how many people get pissy about sensitivity readers being "censorship", while also insisting that editors are absolutely essential to making a book as good as it can be. Surely if a sensitivity reader is "censoring" a book by giving some suggestions (not orders or demands) on how to make a book better, then an editor is also "censoring" a book when they do the exact same thing? The truth is authors have always had fellow authors, beta readers and editors who read their work, react to it, and give suggestions on how to improve it. A wise author should seek out feedback, and getting feedback from people who actually know the subject matter is pretty damned valuable.
I'm not really making an argument, but describing something I've heard and seems like a reasonable point to consider: One potential issue with "cleaning up" stuff like HP Lovecraft is that a lot of his horror is, in fact, horror about race. So cleaning it up would interact weirdly with that topic — would it mask the racial nature of it by making it less overt? Would it make it a different story? Or would it still basically be intact, but less immediately distracting, just because our modern ear recoils when we read certain words? (I don't know which of these it would be; it probably varies depending on the story)
I actually think the stories would be stronger without the racial elements, because a common theme in many of the stories I've read so far (bearing in mind I've only read about 25% so far) has been the discovery of something hideous and bestial within the human. I've actually not interpreted the horror as being exclusively about race, because Lovecraft assumes all characters are white unless explicitly stated otherwise (as most authors do), and ghastly heritage is not reserved only for the non-white characters. I suppose one could argue that it's intended to be a metaphor for discovering that one's "bloodline" isn't as pure as they believe (I wonder if Lovecraft had, or feared he had, non-white ancestors?), and that's where the racial horror comes into it.
The interesting thing is that so many of the stories I've read so far don't even mention race (except in passing), which makes racism stand out even more in the stories it suddenly appears in. The "what if we aren't who we think we are?" and "what knowledge would drive us mad if we learned it?" themes stand just fine on their own in the stories where race isn't mentioned; and these themes would be maintained if the racist slurs were edited out of other stories. Lovecraft's horror is cosmic and existential, and is more so when presented as racially neutral, because it leaves all humans equally powerless in the face of the unnameable.
shrugs That's just my interpretation, anyway, which is of course 100% subjective. I may change my mind when I get to Lovecraft's later works. The dude is absolutely an awful racist, and my experience with bigots is they become more extreme, and less cautious about hiding their hatred, as time goes on. So we'll see. But as it stands, the stories I've read so far would not change significantly if the racism was removed, and they'd be better reads without that enormous distraction.