“Classic” Dahl books to be published after backlash over cuts and rewrites
LONDON>> Publisher Penguin Random House announced Friday it will 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 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 comes 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.
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 may 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 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.”
Although tweaking old books for modern sensibilities is not a new phenomenon in publishing, the scale of the edits drew strong criticism from freespeech 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.”
Dahl, who died in 1990, is also a controversial figure because of antisemitic comments made throughout his life. His family apologized in 2020.