Driving home for the festive holiday Fairytale of New York by The Progues came on Radio 1. I noticed memorable lyrics sang by Kirsty MacColl sounded different and learned the BBC had changed the words of the song familiar to me. This revision made me think, is it ever appropriate to change works of literature, censoring content to suit the sensitivities of the reader?
Words used in art forms may have been intended to evoke authenticity or be appropriate to the time of writing. Language of the past often has different meanings from our own, not to mention the sensibilities of people from the past will always be different from today, or tomorrow. Some words in my historical novels have completely different meanings, as they may in the future. A song from my wife’s uncle’s band was banned from air on the BBC in the 60s, only for the same song to be preformed by another band at the BBC in the 80s. This is why censoring the past by tearing down statues or erasing events is a futile activity. If anything, we must learn from the past, and should remember what we consider acceptable, or indeed moral today, some may find unacceptable in the future.
Many literary works have been changed over time for cultural and sensitivity concerns, translations, or simply a change in title. Mark Twain, Hugh Lofting, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl, and others have been subject to censorship. During his lifetime, Roald Dahl had urged his publishers not to, “so much as change a single comma in one of my books,’ yet in 2023 Puffin Books announced it had hired sensitivity readers to assess Dahl’s works and rereleased his books with multiple changes regarding depictions of race, sex and character. I comment on this with a sense of anguish of the publisher. I left my support and membership of The Royal Society of Literature for failing to support authors through censorship and impartiality.
Dahl’s works have been highly criticised by various groups on the perceived content and word use, and perhaps rightly so, especially with concern to children. Sensor a work with redactions by all means, or abridge if you must, so the reader knows clearly it has been changed, but never alter or substitute words. I know this has occurred many times over the course of publishing history, but as an author I would rather a work never be republished than altered from the original, unless by author consent. Instead of erasing an author’s intent, and historical context, publish new books that you would like people to read.
I have written more about use of words in my post Curses!