Welcome to All About Agatha, the podcast dedicated to reading and ranking, every single mystery

novel written by the Queen of Crime, Dame Agatha Christie.

I am Kemper Donovan, and on this episode I will be discussing the final, narrow, short

story to be discussed on this podcast, four and twenty blackbirds.

Before I get into this short story, I would like to do a little bit of housekeeping.

I am just going to address up top a topic that has been occupying many people lately, which

is the news of certain revisions, emendations, exisions, what have you, being made to the

text of Christie novels in future editions coming out in the UK, I believe.

That is really all I know.

And as far as I'm aware, that's all anyone knows.

So I would start off my thoughts on this topic by saying that I need more information before

I can pass a judgment on what may or may not be happening here as regards future editions

of Christie novels.

This issue of revising classic texts for readerly sensitivity has come up a bit in the recent

past.

We've heard that something similar is happening with the rule doll estate.

Yes, I realize that most people pronounce it rolled doll.

That is how I pronounced it until very recently, but apparently the Norwegian way to say

it and the way that he would have said it is rule.

The James Bond novels by Ian Fleming will also feature similar revisions.

And I was interested to see that in the case of doll, there will be two editions of his

books, the so-called classic editions that don't have any of these edits for sensitivity,

...