Agatha Christie classics latest to be rewritten in woke madness

A shelf with Agatha Christie novels on

Christie’s infamous novel series Poirot and Miss Marple are to be rewritten

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George McMillan

By George McMillan


Published: 27/03/2023

- 13:20

Christie’s infamous novel series Poirot and Miss Marple are to be rewritten

Agatha Christie’s novels have become the latest in a slew of books that are being rewritten in an attempt to censor modern audiences from language and terms used in them.

Christie’s infamous novel series Poirot and Miss Marple are to be rewritten and in some cases have sections removed by publisher HarperCollins to avoid causing offence.


Descriptions on characters, insults and references to characters’ ethnicities have all been changed or removed in an attempt to prevent causing offence to modern readers.

One character, a British tourist, who was originally written as venting frustration at children, has been removed.

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's classics are the latest to be rewritten for modern sensitivities.

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Descriptions of characters’ teeth, smiles, and physical appearances have also been taken out.

Harper Collins has used sensitivity readers to help assist in its newly revised publications.

In Death on the Nile, a Poirot novel written in 1937, Mrs Allerton exclaims how she does not like children, in the original publication she says “their eyes are simply disgusting, and so are their noses, and I don’t believe I really like children”.

This has been rewritten to simply say “they come back and stare, and stare. And I don’t believe I really like children”, according to The Telegraph.

A woman holding copies of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels.

Ian Fleming's estate also announced this year that it would be rewriting parts of the James Bond novels.

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The term “oriental” has also been removed, and the description of some characters’ ethnicity have been taken away completely.

A line from the Miss Marple novel A Caribbean Mystery, the detective describes a West Indian hotel worker smiling with “such lovely white teeth”.

This is is now longer in the novel and any description of “beautiful teeth” has been removed.

Another character who was once described as having a torso “of black marble such as a sculptor would have enjoyed” now no longer has a description.

References to a woman being a “gypsy type” have been removed and she it now referred to as a young woman.

“Natives” are now called “locals” and all racial descriptions have been stripped from the text.

Earlier this year, it was announced that other famous writers such as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming would also have their novels rewritten to avoid causing offence.

The famous James Bond novels will now include a prominent paragraph which reads: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.

“A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”

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