Rewriting Romance

Lisa Kleypas' Revised Works

The best place to get romance novel intel is on Threads (Meta’s version of Twitter/X). It was there that I saw the discreet news that Lisa Kleypas, a titan of historical romance, is rewriting her early works to remove parts deemed less savory for a contemporary audience.

I have previously written about the contentious rewrites of Georgette Heyer’s works to remove overtly antisemitic characters. However, those changes were made posthumously. It is unusual for an author to revise their writing within their own lifetime due to changing sensibilities. Lisa Kleypas has been quite open about how romance has evolved throughout her long career. She even penned an essay titled Lisa Kleypas Talks Changing Trends in Romance, in which she reflects:

Accordingly, in my early novels the female protagonists were frequently thrown into peril and needed lots of rescuing, and I’m sorry to say the hero was pretty much always in charge. But my stories have changed as I have, just as the romance genre has developed to meet the evolving attitudes of its readers. Now the heroine is the one in charge, and her needs and goals are paramount.

In my Wallflowers series, a homage to the power of female friendship, four young women who are considered misfits decide to band together to find husbands.¹

The passage above was written in 2020, and now, that same series received its round of edits in 2024. This is just one example of how quickly societal norms are shifting and how the internet fosters direct communication between readers en masse and authors.

The resounding consensus? They are her novels to do with as she pleases. However, there was much speculation regarding the motivations behind these edits and the level of transparency surrounding them.

Changes:

I will describe the changes in broad strokes to minimize potential spoilers. Some are fairly innocuous, in my opinion—what was once known as a stolen kiss is now considered nonconsensual. Episodes of jealousy from heroes have been removed, likely as a reflection of concerns over toxic masculinity. Others are more understandable. For example, instances where a heroine was inebriated and then engaged in physical intimacy have been removed or sanitized.

Edits have also been made to remove offensive language referring to Romani people—an especially relevant change considering that two main characters in the Hathaways series are Roma.

Removing offensive language is a relatively straightforward process, something publishers are well-versed in when updating early 20th century novels. However, readers have noted that more substantial edits can disrupt plotlines. In one instance, the removal of a prologue means that readers no longer witness the initial encounter between the hero and heroine that originally triggered their future animosity, making the insta-hate dynamic confusing.

Motivation

Some netizens speculate that Kleypas is making these edits to increase her books' appeal to large studios such as Netflix—that she may want the “Julia Quinn treatment.” This is a fair assumption. Lisa Kleypas is a much bigger name in the romance industry than Quinn, and I, for one, would love to see adaptations of her work.

However, I would point out that the first novel in Quinn’s Bridgerton series contains highly problematic subject matter. (Spoiler: In The Duke and I, Daphne disregards her husband's reproductive rights and intentionally gets pregnant against his wishes.) I would argue that this is far more egregious than anything found in Kleypas’ Wallflowers series. But perhaps Netflix heard viewers disappointment and is more cautious in response.

The Transparency Issue

Lisa Kleypas is not exactly hiding these edits, though she is not widely marketing them either. New releases do not mention the changes or the reasoning behind them. The real transparency issue, however, arises with eBooks. Unlike physical copies, readers do not own eBooks outright; they only license them. This means that if a publisher updates a book, the changes can be pushed to e-readers without the reader’s opt-in.

You may have noticed that the covers of some of your Kindle books have changed over time? Well, textual edits can also be updated in the same way. So, you may revisit a beloved book for a reread and suddenly find yourself questioning your sanity when major plot points have changed. If you’re like me, you’ll assume you’re losing it—but not this time.

Books as Records

When I learned about these changes last year, I took my first plunge into romance book collecting. I have been an amateur book collector for a long time, but I honestly never saw much appeal in mass-market paperbacks (I know, I know), preferring the mystique of 18th- and 19th-century leather-bound tomes. However, these edits have made me acutely aware of the importance of books as records.

The commercial nature of romance novels makes them particularly vulnerable to shifts in social standards. This is evident in the modern disgust toward 1970s bodice rippers, which had vastly different views on consent. There is almost no market for these early romances. This dynamic response to market trends is exactly what makes romance novels so fascinating to study. However, in the age of eBooks, this responsiveness means that records are no longer as fixed as they once were. Each edition of a novel becomes an important artifact.

I have now accumulated a solid collection of Kleypas’ first editions, which has turned into an incredibly exciting hobby in its own right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend the latest episode of the Shelf Love Podcast, where greater minds than mine discuss this topic in depth. Shelf Love’s host, Andrea Martucci, chats with renowned book dealer and author Rebecca Romney about this very issue. The episode primarily focuses on Romney’s new book, Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, but the topic of Kleypas’ edits naturally arises in the broader discussion of books as historical records in the digital age.

I highly recommend listening to the entire episode, but if you’re short on time, the Kleypas discussion starts at 16:50.

Which version should you read?

The answer is the same as in my Georgette Heyer piece: it’s entirely up to you. If you’re looking for a romantic escape without potentially problematic content that might pull you out of the story, pick up a recent edition. If you’re interested in Kleypas’ work and how it has evolved over the years, browse Etsy or eBay for an early edition—they’re not hard to find. Ultimately, it’s a personal choice, and you might even find yourself reading different editions for different reasons.

1. https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/1790-lisa-kleypas-talks-changing-trends-in-romance