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Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Malory Towers have captivated young readers since the 1940s.
But the Daily Mail analysis found that the books have been stripped of many of the much-loved author’s keywords, with innocent uses of ‘queer’, ‘gay’ and even ‘brown’, with reference to tanned faces, changed to avoid cause offense
The findings come after outrage over controversial rewrites “spurred” by “sensitive readers” of 16 Roald Dahl children’s classics from Puffin Books.
‘Old witch’, in Dahl’s Witches, has been changed to ‘old crow’, the greedy Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is no longer described as ‘fat’, and Miss Trunchbull in Matilda has lost her ‘great horse face’ .
Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie, still reeling from an assassination attempt, was moved to speak out, saying: “Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is censorious nonsense.”
Daily Mail analysis has found that the books have been stripped of many of the much-loved author’s keywords, such as innocent uses of ‘queer’ and ‘gay’.
Born in East Dulwich, south London, in 1897, the hundreds of millions of fans of Blyton may be similarly surprised by the changes in current editions of some of her most popular books.
His first Famous Five adventure, Five on Treasure Island, featured young Julian, Dick and Anne and their tomboy cousin Georgina, or George, as well as their dog Timothy.
In the 1942 edition, ‘queer’ was Blyton’s favorite adjective, used up to two times on a page, and applied to everything from cormorants to waves. Never, of course, with any reference to sexuality. But the jitters over the word are such that in the current Hodder Children’s Books edition available in bookstores in 2023, it is dropped entirely and variously replaced with ‘quirky’, ‘weird’, ‘strange’, ‘fun’ , ‘weird’, and ‘incredible’.
So when Anne wonders why Georgina hasn’t greeted her and her siblings, she originally commented, “Isn’t she weird? She doesn’t want to welcome us…”. In 2023, she says, ‘Isn’t that weird? She doesn’t want to welcome us…’ There’s also evidently a modern edginess around her skin color.
A description of ‘a brown-faced fisher-boy’ is ‘changed to a tanned fisher-boy’. In 1942, Blyton continued: ‘The fisher boy … smiled at George. “Good morning, Master George,” he said.
It seemed so strange to the other children to hear Georgina called “Master George”! The words emphasized the key plot component of Georgina/George’s tomboyish nature, but that was clearly too contentious for modern readers.
Now the passage says simply: The fisher boy… He smiled at George. “Good morning, George,” he said.
While child spanking is much less common than it was 80 years ago, it is still not a criminal offense in England. But there’s not a word of that in today’s Famous Five. In 1942, Uncle Quentin had said of his daughter: ‘Where’s George? She wants spanking. Now, he says, ‘She wants a good talk, too.’
Blyton wrote that the girls’ “gay voices rang from one end of the platform to the other,” but in the updated version, their voices are “happy.”
Respect for elders also seems to have gone out of style. When Julian apologized to Uncle Quentin in the 1942 version, he said, “I’m sorry, sir.” Now, sorry, but it doesn’t include the seemingly too subservient ‘sir’.
After the boys’ heroic adventures come to a close with them (spoiler alert) finding hidden gold, Blyton had an important moment for his tomboyish character, finally earning his father’s respect.
She wrote: ‘Uncle Quentin ruffled George’s short curly hair. “And I’m proud of you too, George,” she said. “You are as good as a child any day!”
In 2023, with his speech cut down and any comparison to boys removed: ‘Uncle Quentin messed up George’s short curly hair. “And I’m proud of you too, George,” he said.
Similarly, color was dropped from Blyton’s 1946 classic First Term at Malory Towers, which launched a series about Darrell Rivers’ upbringing at a Cornish girls’ boarding school.
Arriving in the bedroom, Darrell and his housemates were originally told to get into bed by ‘A tall, dark-haired girl, quiet in her own way’. In 2023, she is ‘A tall, quiet girl in her own way’.
French teacher Mam’zelle Dupont was originally ‘short, fat and round’; she now she is ‘short and round’. And while Darrall originally wanted to ‘slap’ enemy Gwendoline, she now wants to ‘shake’ her.
Blyton’s first Famous Five adventure, Five on Treasure Island, was published in 1942 and featured the group of four friends and a dog.
And while in 1946 Gwendoline was described as feeling that she had to “slave like a slave”, in 2023 she “must work hard”.
Blyton’s first book of a staggering 800 titles was published in 1922. He died in 1968.
He previously faced fire for descriptions of a carjacking by ‘Blackface Golliwogs’ and for writing about the Sambo doll, which was unpopular due to its ‘ugly blackface’ until it turned white in the rain.
Hodder Children’s Books’ parent company, Hachette Children’s Books, said no one was available to comment on the changes to Blyton’s original text.