‘Ongoing process’: Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books edited to remove ‘offensive’ words
The publisher of a classic children’s series has confirmed it will continue to rewrite the books to remove any “offensive terms”.
Frank Chung, news.com.au March 14, 2023
The publisher of the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton has confirmed it has will continue to rewrite the classic children’s books to remove any “offensive terms” as part of an “ongoing process”.
It comes after it was revealed that phrases such as “shut up” and innocent uses of words including “queer”, “gay” and “brown” had been censored from the books.
The beloved English children’s author, who died in 1968, is the latest to fall victim to “woke” edits as publishers quietly rewrite older works – at the direction of so-called “sensitivity readers” – to remove words and phrases now deemed offensive to modern sensibilities.
The Famous Five series of 21 books, the first of which was published in 1942, features the adventures of a group of children – Julian, Dick, Anne, George and their dog Timmy.
According to a report in The Australian, an audiobook of The Famous Five Short Story Collection has been edited in recent months. The first tale, Five Have a Puzzling Time, sees the group travel to Kirrin Island to investigate mysterious lights.
In the original text, George – a tomboy who cuts her hair short and demands people call her George instead of Georgina – wakes up her cousin Anne, who says, “Oh George, don’t be an a**. As if you could get your boat and row across the bay in the middle of the night!”
The audiobook now has Anne saying, “Oh George. As if you could get your boat and row across the bay in the middle of the night!”
Julian also originally rebukes his cousin, telling her, “Shut up, George. Be sensible.” In the edited version he now simply says, “George, be sensible.”
A collection of Famous Five books by children’s author Enid Blyton.
The Australian also reports at least two instances of “don’t be an idiot” have been cut from the collection, while a number of other, seemingly inconsistent changes have been made to the downloadable e-books.