Probably the best example I can think of is Diane Duane reworking her Wizards series to make it modern-day, but there are others, including owners of a literary estate altering books left to them to make them compatible with current standards.
What do you think? Does it matter if it’s the original author or an inheritor?
I really appreciate this perspective. I work in software, and it’s an understood that the editing process continues after delivery to customers. The users know whether the content is valuable or appropriate to their situation, and their feedback can make the original work so much more applicable and useful with good listening and thoughtful, customer-focused edits. In these cases, the knee jerk “I want my original to be untainted and unaffected” doesn’t make sense to me.
Removing unnecessary and casual fatphobia, misogyny, and racism means that more people can get more value from a work, and that work will be better suited to its population.