> This change I feel is one of the least objectionable, IMHO. The point of the paragraph seems to be that Mathilda read kind of stuffy old books, and fed her im

> This change I feel is one of the least objectionable, IMHO. The point of the paragraph seems to be that Mathilda read kind of stuffy old books, and fed her imagination with them. If the namedropped authors aren't well known by today's children, why not adjust them? Do you remember analyzing books in school? One of the things we were taught to keep in mind as a lens of analysis was the author as a person, and why they might have written what they wrote. I think this is a great example: Why did Dahl choose the authors he chose to mention? In Matilda, in many cases, I believe he did it to tacitly recommend those books and authors to his readers. To the age group that makes up Dahl's readership, most of them probably weren't well known even at the peak of their popularity. That's sort of the point: Dahl's saying--possibly--"go check this out, my young readers". So yeah, I think it's pretty crass to just change it to a different author. Dahl is an author calling out fellow authors in his book. It happens in movies a lot, too, where filmmakers will put subtle (or not-so-subtle) nods to their peers and forebears and inspirations in their work. I think, as a rule, if the audience notices it, it was probably intentional. Most authors and filmmakers care about other authors and filmmakers a lot more than we do. None of them would be okay with somebody in the future mucking with their references because people aren't immediately getting the reference. They'd be like... "No! The whole point was to immortalize that person or work further by mentioning it in my work!"