“It staggers me”: Netizens reacts as Roald Dahl’s books are edited to remove words deemed sensitive

Puffin, a prestigious publishing house from the UK, has been scrubbing what they deem to be insensitive and non-inclusive words and terms from British author Roald Dahl’s children’s books. In many cases, the publishers are even rephrasing Dahl’s words to make them more politically correct.

However, this matter has not been well-received by many book lovers, especially those who grew up reading Dahl’s popular children’s stories and novels.

A Scottish blogger from the UK, Effie Deans, expressed their discontent on Twitter and wrote that it shocks them deeply that publishers are censoring and rewriting Dahl’s books.

They compared the situation with when Thomas Bowdler edited William Shakespeare's plays in 1807 to ensure they were family-friendly, as a result of which the verb "bowdlerise" came into usage.

The Roald Dahl Story Company and Puffin Books collaborated with Inclusive Minds, a company that is intent on ensuring inclusion, equality, diversity, and accessibility exist in children’s literature and is dedicated to bringing change to the face of children’s books.

The collaboration between the three companies ended in a dilution of Dahl’s playful narratives to be more inclusive and acceptable of what they were considering contemporary culture.

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"Fat" and "ugly" removed from new editions of Roald Dahl's books

In the latest editions of Dahl’s books published by Puffin, references to the characters’ physical appearances were edited to make them more sensitive and sanitized. Adjectives like “fat” and “ugly” were erased from new editions of his books. According to reports, the publishers hired “sensitivity readers” to make the changes.

One of Roald Dahl’s popular children’s novels, James and the Giant Peach, written in 1961, had a line where the character Aunt Sponge was described as “terrifically fat” as well as “tremendously flabby”. Another character, Aunt Spiker, was compared to a wire and bone for her thin and dry physique.

However, the adjectives, “fat”, “flabby”, “thin”, and “dry” were removed from the new editions of the novels. The entire verse was rewritten as:

“Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute / And deserved to be squashed by the fruit.”

Aunt Spiker’s descriptions were also changed and rewritten as:

“Aunt Spiker was much of the same / And deserves half of the blame.”

Another character, Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, portrayed as a glutton in the book and in the movie adaptions of the novel, is no longer introduced as “fat”. Instead, he is now known to children as “enormous”.

Similarly, in the book The Twits, the character of Mrs. Twit, whom the author described in the original version of the book as “ugly and beastly”, now has only one adjective, “beastly”.

Gendered references in Dahl’s books have also been weakened so that they do not come off as offensive to women or the transgender or queer community. In the novel The Witches, the part where it was said that witches are originally bald underneath their wigs, has now been given a new disclaimer that says:

“There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”

In Matilda, the dictatorial and ferocious headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, who was previously called the “most formidable female” in the book, is now the “most formidable woman”.

The Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who were once called “small men”, are now being introduced to readers as “small people”. In James and the Giant Peach, the Cloud-Men are now Cloud-People.

Netizens have expressed their displeasure at Puffin for censoring and changing Roald Dahl's authentic writing after his death.

The Roald Dahl Story Company stated that the periodic revisions of an author’s old books are standard in today’s date. The company also claimed that the initiative aimed to preserve Dahl’s voice and style.

However, Roald Dahl’s biographer, Matthew Dennison, suggested that Dahl’s books were written for the imaginative and lighthearted minds of children. Dennison foreshadowed that in order to make the stories comfortable for readers of all ages, some adults can ruin the essence and fun of these stories for the primary readers these books were written for, i.e., children.