I really loved your thoughts on the "evil airs" that seem to infect foreign countries in these stories! I do wonder if some of it was at all a real-life reflection of diseases they weren't prepared for. My friend's go-to example of the phenomenon Aisha is quoted mentioning is that apparently a set of British colonists in Australia literally starved to death because they refused to eat anything unfamiliar to them, or ask the clearly not-starving indigenous population where to get food.

My only exposure thus far to A Little Princess is a visual novel adaptation called A Little Lily Princess, which stated that it borrowed large amounts of the original text in its writing. I found it intensely charming, but it's clear from your review that it dialled back all the racist and classist aspects to the furthest extent it could while still preserving the gist of the story. (Something I had wondered about while playing it.) It probably helped that they also rewrote it as GL and that Sarah and Ermengarde's romance was heartstoppingly sweet and fluffy.