what does anyone here know about the accuracy or multicultural competence of his works

This question seemed to me to have hit a hot-button, so I've been thinking.

As one can see for oneself in the thread about multicultural competence, the term (nowadays) has as many meanings (and hot-buttons) as the term "PC."

In SOME circles (the ones I come from for instance), the term connotates not a set of behaviors (such as mandated at most cultural sensitivity trainings I ever attended), but a set of underlying assumptions, intentions, and/or values.

In those sorts of circles (and as I use the term), there's a mixture of respect and curiosity that generally result, when behavior follows those, in all-around cooperation (as opposed to mutually offended people who have mutually misunderstood one another totally).

And in a number of articles regarding "older" literary works, I have seen references to authors that were considered, in their own time, to be what we would NOW consider to have been ahead of their time.


In other words-- of course one could not expect Henty, in his time, to be PC now.

But one COULD have an opinion as to where his works would fall NOW-- on a PC/multiculturality scale of one's own choosing-- now that we have the luxury of looking back with different values and expectations from our time to his.

And THAT would interest me.


As some of you know, I have some vision issues that make it nigh unto impossible to do extensive text-reading on anything. AND Henty is not in my own cultural-upbringing memory. So I asked what we know.


I appreciate especially all the UK answers here so far.


So-- what else do we know? :~)

~Susan