Should Literature give in to Political Correctness

@Eskimo (2315)
June 25, 2007 2:58pm CST
One of my favourite books is by Agatha Christie, called "10 Little N*****s", which was written in the 1939 about a number of people who were marooned on an island,(N****r Island) and died one by one, until all were dead. The name of the book was changed to "10 Little Indians" (which some people still thought was deemening) and also called "And Then There Was None" The book itself is based on a Victorian music hall show song written by Frank Green in 1869. The Book has been filmed and been on stage many times under all three names. However what I want to know is should names of books be changed because of Political Correctness, when the book itself was written at a time before such a thing existed, and even though it could cause offence now, it probably didn't at the time it was written? Also words and their meanings also evolve, another set of books which I enjoyed reading were written by Berkley Gray about someone called Norman Conquest Known in most of the books as "The Gay Desperado", which had nothing to do with homosexuality, but would this even be allowed these days. (Its only a few weeks ago that a schoolchild in the U.K. sent an e-mail to a friend calling him "Gay" [but meaning something along the lines of wicked], because the meaning of this word has changed again resulting in 4 policemen turning up at his house to arrest him for this.
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1 response
• United States
26 Jun 07
I dont think Agatha Christie had any intentions of insulting anyone with her original title ( I loved her books). When I was a child there was brand of jam made by Robertsons, I dont know if they still have it in Scotland, there was a little black boy on the label and we called him a little golliwog. I wonder if that is politically correct? Then it could have been called "10 Little Golliwogs".
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@Eskimo (2315)
26 Jun 07
Golliwogs are now banned in the U.K. as they are no longer politically correct, Police have recently raided a shop selling Golliwogs and arrested the owner for being a racist (Golliwogs are not and never have been racist). Indeed in the early Noddy Books by Enid Blyton, Noddy & Big-Ears (also now politically incorrect ) have had a lot of trouble with Golliwogs. (now changed to Goblins). Robertson's had to remove the Golliwogs from their jars of jam and Marmalade some years ago as well, when I was young you could collect stickers from the jars and send them away to get a metal Golliwog badge. There are even websites devoted to Golliwogs see http://golliwogs.com/ or there is also a U.K. site http://www.golliwogg.co.uk/ which gives a history from the bRITISH PERSPECTIVE.
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• United States
26 Jun 07
Thank you for links they were very interesting. How sad that an innocent thing which I, and probably others, have happy memories of get turned around into something so hateful.
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• United States
26 Jun 07
BTW glad to see you back! Noticed you have not been around for a while.
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