Publisher Penguin Random House on Friday announced that it would publish “classic” unexpurgated versions of Roald Dahl’s children’s novels after it received criticism for cuts and rewrites that were intended to make the books suitable for modern readers.
Along with the new editions, the company said that 17 of Dahl’s books would be published in their original form later this year as “The Roald Dahl Classic Collection” so “readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.”
The move came after criticism of scores of changes made to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other much-loved classics for recent editions published under the company’s Puffin children’s label, in which passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered.
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Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — originally published in 1964 — became “enormous” rather than “enormously fat.” In Witches, an “old hag” became an “old crow,” and a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman might be a “top scientist or running a business” instead of a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman.”
In Fantastic Mr Fox, the word “black” was removed from a description of the “murderous, brutal-looking” tractors.
The Roald Dahl Story Co, which controls the rights to the books, said it had worked with Puffin to review and revise the texts because it wanted to ensure that “Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.”
While tweaking old books for modern sensibilities is not a new phenomenon, the scale of the edits drew strong criticism from free-speech groups such as writers’ organization PEN America, and from authors including Salman Rushdie.
Rushdie, who lived under threat of death from Iran’s Islamic regime for years because of the alleged blasphemy of his novel The Satanic Verses, called the revisions “absurd censorship.”
Rushdie, who was attacked and seriously injured last year at an event in New York state, on Friday responded on Twitter about Penguin’s change of heart with the words: “Penguin Books back down after Roald Dahl backlash!”
“I applaud Penguin for hearing out critics, taking the time to rethink this, and coming to the right place,” PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel wrote on Twitter.
Dahl, who died in 1990, is also a controversial figure because of anti-Semitic comments made throughout his life. His family apologized in 2020.
Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s, said the publisher had “listened to the debate over the past week, which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl’s books and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation.”
“Roald Dahl’s fantastic books are often the first stories young children will read independently, and taking care for the imaginations and fast-developing minds of young readers is both a privilege and a responsibility,” she said.
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