The Virtue of Dangerous Ideas

Penguin Is Caught Secretly Rewriting Children’s Books

Before diving in to the guts of this update, a few principles must be stated:

1. Tribalism should be rejected by all thinking people. Right/left, red state/blue state, rich/poor, urban/rural, etc., etc., is a distraction from larger, more systemic issues that really matter. Those tribal divisions are being put there to distract you. Don’t be distracted. Keep your eyes on the prize;

2. What follows is not about Roald Dahl specifically. He happens to be the author caught up in this story, but what follows could be written about almost any author;

3. Finally, and most importantly, any time you remove risk from a system, buffoonery ensues and bad things happen to good people. For example, when you disregard/remove risk from an economic system, you get asset bubbles that burst and cripple the economy temporarily (i.e. the 1987 crash, the 2000 dot-com crash, the 2008 Great Recession, etc.);

4. This piece is about the absolute protection of artistic integrity. There is no higher calling; and

5. While this piece could have also easily been more at home in Tuk’s Copyright Law Report, which you should also read, this issue has a greater impact on a wider audience so here it is.

Now that we have dispensed with those pleasantries, let us begin.

Puffin Books (a division of Penguin Publishing) was recently discovered to have engaged in stealth rewrites of some of the works of British author Ronald Dahl. Some of Dahl’s works include: James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Matilda.

What were the changes? Below are some via the Telegraph (UK):