My longtime bookseller friend, Steve sent me information last week regarding plans by Publisher Penguin Random House to publish “classic” Roald Dahl books after a “censorship” backlash.
The new editions, which remove passages related to weight, mental health, gender, and race, will appear along with reprints of 17 of Dahl’s books in their original form later, with the latter branded as “The Roald Dahl Classic Collection” under the Puffin imprint, so readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.
Penguin made the decision to publish the classic editions after the publisher “listened to the debate over the past week,” said Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s in a recent statement.
In the edited versions, Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — originally published in 1964 — became “enormous” rather than “enormously fat.” In Witches, a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be a “top scientist or running a business” instead of a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman.”
The Roald Dahl Story Company, 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.”
300 million copies sold
While tweaking old books for modern sensibilities is not a new phenomenon in publishing, the scale of the edits drew strong criticism from free-speech groups, readers, and authors.
Dahl’s books, with their mischievous children, strange beasts, and often beastly adults, have sold more than 300 million copies and continue to be read by children around the world. Their multiple stage and screen adaptations include Matilda the Musical and two Willy Wonka films based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a third in the works.
In 2021, Dahl’s estate sold the rights to the books to Netflix, which plans to produce a new generation of films based on the stories.
“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,” Dow said in the article.
“We also recognize the importance of keeping Dahl’s classic texts in print,” Dow added. “By making both Puffin and Penguin versions available, we are offering readers the choice to decide how they experience Roald Dahl’s magical, marvelous stories.”
♦ Portions of this post were excerpted from the CBS News website, and google graphics.
For the past two days, I have been writing about Shakespeare and his world of the Globe Theatre. In today’s post, I thought I would share some concluding remarks about William Shakespeare, also known as the Bard of Avon.
I was saddened to open the Opinion page of the Detroit Free Press yesterday to learn that nationally syndicated opinion columnist, Leonard Pitts Jr. was retiring. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Miami Herold. I was introduced to Pitts a couple of years ago by my friend, John, and discovered that his Sunday column was featured in the Detroit Free Press.
Yesterday, I posted that David Baldacci was one of my favorite authors and provided a complete listing of all his books and series. I thought it might be useful in today’s post to provide a brief presentation of the various series.
Dear Readers,
The Bookman's Page 
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