Editing Agatha Christie (section)

==== Character stereotypes and racism ====
{{About||information on Christie's book originally titled ''Ten Little Niggers''|And Then There Were None}}

Christie included stereotyped descriptions of characters in her work, especially before 1945 (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans.<ref name="Morgan1984"/>{{Rp|264–66}} For example, she described "men of [[Hebrews|Hebraic]] extraction, sallow men with hooked noses, wearing rather flamboyant jewellery" in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier" from the collection ''[[The Mysterious Mr Quin]]''. In 1947, the [[Anti-Defamation League]] in the US sent an official letter of complaint to Christie's American publishers, [[Dodd, Mead and Company]], regarding perceived [[antisemitism]] in her works. Christie's British literary agent later wrote to her US representative, authorising American publishers to "omit the word 'Jew' when it refers to an unpleasant character in future books."<ref name="thompson"/>{{Rp|386}}

In ''[[The Hollow]]'', published in 1946, one of the characters is described by another as "a [[Whitechapel]] Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a [[corncrake]]&nbsp;... a small woman with a thick nose, henna red hair and a disagreeable voice". To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie portrayed some "foreign" characters as victims, or potential victims, at the hands of English malefactors, such as, respectively, Olga Seminoff (''[[Hallowe'en Party]]'') and Katrina Reiger (in the short story "How Does Your Garden Grow?"). Jewish characters are often seen as un-English (such as Oliver Manders in ''[[Three Act Tragedy]]''), but they are rarely the culprits.<ref>{{Citation |last=Pendergast |first=Bruce |title=Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie |page=399 |year=2004 |location=Victoria, BC, Canada |publisher=[[Trafford Publishing|Trafford]] |isbn=1-4120-2304-1}}</ref>

In 2023, the ''[[The Daily Telegraph|Telegraph]]'' reported that several Agatha Christie novels have been edited to remove "passages containing descriptions, insults or references to ethnicity". Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries written between 1920 and 1976 have had passages reworked or removed in new editions published by [[HarperCollins]], in order to strip them of language and descriptions that modern audiences find offensive, especially those involving the characters Christie's protagonists encounter outside the UK. Sensitivity readers had made the edits, which were evident in digital versions of the new editions, including the entire Miss Marple run and selected Poirot novels set to be released or that have been released since 2020.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Simpson |first1=Craig |title=Agatha Christie classics latest to be rewritten for modern sensitivities |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/25/agatha-christie-classics-latest-rewritten-modern-sensitivities/ |access-date=29 March 2023 |work=The Telegraph |date=25 March 2023}}</ref>