We’ve been making changes to books for ages – you just haven’t known about it

One of my first jobs in publishing involved a book that was being published posthumously. The author, a WW2 veteran, had written about his experiences and we were working with a family member to edit the memoirs. The family member was adamant that we leave a certain term in because it was accurate for the time it was written. However, the word used to describe a certain group of people had been just as offensive then as it was in the present day. As the publishers, we felt it would not only reflect negatively on the author and take away from the point of the book, but that many readers would struggle to understand why something published now would have those terms. And so, the book was published without said term.

The furore around making changes to Roald Dahl’s books has some similarities to this, with the added complication that the books are already published and hold a special place for many people who enjoyed them as children. The Dahl estate has struggled for years to deal with the Dahl’s anti-Semitism, and this concern about how some aspects of his books could be problematic has surely been on their minds for some time.

However, to really understand the situation, you need to also consider the commercial aspects of the publishing industry.

For full disclosure, I get most my income now as an inclusivity editor and I worked on the Enid Blyton brand within a publishing house for a while, so am familiar with the strategies the companies are putting into place. The most important thing to remember is that with a valuable – but dead – author, is that publishing houses are mainly thinking, "How can we make as much money as possible with this intellectual property (IP) before it enters the public domain?"

IP is valuable – to the extent that an author like Dahl could have a dedicated designer, editor and brand manager within the publishing house. (To put that into perspective, the average editor probably has 20+ authors they’re working with each year.) Dahl died in 1990, meaning his books will become public domain in 2060. So we’re still a while off, but there could also be a fear that more and more parents will eschew Dahl’s works because they are problematic and because of who he was.

Surely it would be good if these parents choose to buy books by new authors instead? Yes, absolutely. But publishing is heavily reliant on strong sales of older books to support future publications. They take a financial risk with new authors, while the overheads of publishing and selling Dahl books at this stage are minimal. Does this mean they should only focus on "classics" to support future publications? No, but that's often the approach they take because they can get more bang for their buck that way. Plus, parents tend to reach for the books that they loved as children to share with their own kids, which is why some books stick around for ages, even if they shouldn’t.

Admittedly, I’m making some assumptions here. I’ve not been privy to these decisions with Dahl’s books and I never worked for Puffin. However, Enid Blyton often comes up during these debates about outdated children’s books and censorship.  

An equally problematic author, Blyton was even criticised in her lifetime for having low-quality writing (something Dahl never faced). Her best-known series, The Famous Five, was already "modernised" over a decade ago. The text was re-worked to be closer to modern language, and these editions were sold as modernised versions alongside the original versions. They were a bit of a flop in the UK, but continued to sell well in Southeast Asia. There are a few ways this could be interpreted, but the important thing to note is that each market ended up with the books they preferred and the stories are still identical, even if there are a few changes to the words. (Amusingly, as I typed this Puffin announced they would have a “classic” edition of the Dahl books as well.)  

But let’s go back to those classic editions of Blyton for a moment. The Blyton estate and rights situation was a bit of a mess and her books passed through so many publishers that it's difficult to say how many times they've been edited or what the original text even was.

At one point while working on Blyton’s books, I was comparing several editions of the same book, all published at different times. I could see an older edition with the highly problematic term “red Indian”, which was later amended to “Indian” in a more recent edition, and then “Native American” in the latest version. At which point, the next version of the book to be published was now sitting with me. And when I saw text that said children jumped out of a bush and “screamed like Native Americans”, I had an actual WTF?! moment, then changed it to “screamed really loudly” and carried on.  

And you, dear reader, are the first to hear of this, because I made that change and didn’t tell anyone until now. I’m sure I’m not the only editor who has done this over the years, and I’m sure it isn’t just Blyton’s books where this has happened.

Granted, it probably helped that I didn’t grow up reading Blyton and didn’t hold her books on a pedestal. While there was a lot of opportunity to make interesting content with her IP, I will confess I am perfectly content to see her books go out of print. (She had a real hatred for Americans, it seemed, by the way we were stereotyped in her books, which also didn’t help my sentiments towards her.) I’ve not worked there for a while, but that publisher’s current strategy seems to be using the Blyton IP by getting current authors to give their own take on the stories/characters to bring them up to date and make them more appealing to today’s children. This seems like a nice compromise to me.

Now let’s talk about how this works for authors who have published books but are still alive. A few years ago, I did some sensitivity reading of a well-known children's series that the publisher and author actively commissioned. I flagged things from minor text changes (e.g. changing “boys and girls” to “children”) to problems with some themes in the story. I knew full well the larger elements wouldn’t be changed with these books – we flagged these as a learning opportunity for future books the author was working on. As for all the minor things I flagged, I'm not sure what they'll implement from it. I made some suggestions, but I imagine if they do anything, they won't be telling anyone about it. And will readers ever notice those changes if we don’t mention it? Probably not.

This has been happening for years now, often without anyone knowing, and there’s good reason why it does happen.

For a while it was a simple “this word isn’t acceptable in a children’s book anymore so we need to change it”. But now, as publishers try to diversify and publish for a wider range of readers, they’re trying to do better by making books as inclusive as possible. This includes looking at popular backlist titles. And they particularly recognise the importance of doing this work for the younger ages.

But, you ask, if we’re messing around with the words of a “national treasure” like Dahl, who’s to say we won’t go for Shakespeare next? In which case, I would like to ask you how many parents are reading Shakespeare to their children as bedtime stories.

Let’s also consider this developmentally. While most adults already have ingrained biases (which they either acknowledge and try to work with or unconsciously know as their typical way of thinking), children still have the opportunity to avoid these. Bias is something that is taught, and if a parent can’t demonstrate why terms and descriptions are outdated or wrong, then a child might automatically assume these things are OK to say, meaning a bias is instilled once again.

As publishers creating content specifically for children, is it responsible of us to put the onus entirely on parents to do this? It's not enough to preface a book with information. How many parents have the time to sit and read an introduction about outdated language before starting a story with their child? And, quite frankly, I can’t see us adding footnotes into a children’s book.

“But this is censorship!” some might say. Well, no. It’s not. Censorship would be stopping publication altogether or completely changing the meaning of what’s being said. Good sensitivity editing doesn’t aim to affect the overall meaning or alter what an author is trying to say. Sure, we might flag content that is problematic for an author to consider, but changing “crazy” to “absurd” is hardly an issue. With already published books, we accept the story as it is and find ways to make the language inclusive.

We can’t expect publishers to let go of content that makes them money. This is business – they’ll find a way to milk it for as long as they can. So the question is how to do it right, and that is where there is no clear answer.

I expect Puffin felt this announcement would show they are trying to address problems with Dahl and his work, knowing full well there would be some backlash. Or perhaps looking for some easy publicity before announcing they would retain a “classic” version of Dahl’s original stories. My preference has always been to do these things quietly, with the consent of the author or the author’s estate, and not get readers or media involved. Because, really, how often do you re-read the books you read as a child? Are you going to remember the exact words from your childhood as you share these books years later, or are you going to remember the overall story? And can you accept that the books you loved as a child might not be suitable for today’s readers?  

Publishers have made their decision to produce updated texts, so you as a reader need to decide where you’re willing to put your money. It’s entirely up to you if you want the updated text, if you’re OK with a classic edition that uses problematic language (and expect parents to have a discussion with their children about this), or if you’re happy to let these books disappear entirely and find new books to replace them.