The highly religious failed medical doctor and prison reformer Thomas Bowdler’s agenda was to exclude profanities, bawdiness, and references to unpleasantness such as suicides from literature in the cause of protecting children and ladies from obscenity. Today “safety” and “sensitivity” fulfill the same “Bowlderizing” imperative. As Charlie Higson put in in a March 15 column in the Guardian: “Times change and sensitivities change, and thankfully we now accept that some things in older books can be very upsetting to some modern readers, and a more diverse readership.”
Since early February when the story of Roald Dahl’s encounter with the censor broke, hardly a week has passed without an establishment publisher or well-known author announcing their desire to hit the moving target of current sensibilities.
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