King Charles’s wife Camilla, Queen Consort, expressed her aversion to censorship during a reception to celebrate the second anniversary of her popular online book club amid the controversy surrounding politically correct rewrites to Roald Dahl’s books.
The Queen Consort addressed the room of writers and told them, “Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination. Enough said,” The Daily Mail reported.
The crowd reacted with cheers and applause as Camilla referenced John Steinbeck by saying, “Let there be no squeaking like mice about your achievements, but only roaring like a pride of lions.” The crowd understood the remarks to be about the controversy over revising Dahl’s books, though the Queen Consort never confirmed this explicitly.
Crime writer Peter James said he appreciated how Camilla was supportive of authors being authentic. “There is an old tradition in publishing, of publish and be damned,” he told the publication. “And I think Her Majesty was just endorsing that to some extent. She was just saying ‘be brave.’”
He went on to question what sort of precedent the Dahl book editing would set for other historic works of literature. “The big question is how far back are we going to go? Are we going to censor Dickens? There are some pretty tough stuff in Dickens that is quite offensive. Are we going to look at Shakespeare?,” James continued. “I think what we have got to accept is that it was a moment in time and this is now.”
The Roald Dahl Story Co. set off a firestorm when they admitted earlier this week that they had worked with Inclusive Minds, which monitors children’s literature for inclusion, diversity, and accessibility, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
The company insisted that changes to the late author’s original stories were “small and carefully considered.” They defended their decision to change the language, saying in a statement, “When publishing new print runs of books written years ago, it’s not unusual to review the language used alongside updating other details including a book’s cover and page layout.”
Changes included replacing the word “fat” with “enormous” in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and making the Oompa Loompas gender neutral. In “Matilda,” a reference to “mothers and fathers” was changed to “parents.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP
In “The Witches,” a paragraph describing witches as bald under their wigs now includes the disclaimer, “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.” Several other changes were made to Dahl’s other works as well.