London: Augustus Gloop is no longer fat, Mrs Twit is not fearfully ugly, and the Oompa-Loompas have gone gender neutral in new editions of books by popular children’s author Roald Dahl.
Puffin has made hundreds of changes to the original stories, removing many of Dahl’s colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque.
Among the changes were edits to The BFG, one of many Dahl books illustrated by Quentin Blake.Credit:© Quentin Blake
“Words matter,” begins the discreet notice, which sits at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books. “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”
While there have been tweaks before, there has never been an alteration on this scale.
The word “fat” has been removed from every book. Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may still look like a ball of dough, but can now only be described as “enormous”.
In the same story, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer “tiny” or “no higher than my knee” but merely small. And where once they were “small men”, they are now “small people”.
Changes were also made to The Witches.Credit:© Quentin Blake
Mrs Twit’s “fearful ugliness” is cut to “ugliness” in The Twits. The words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the BFG cannot wear a black cloak.
The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People. Matilda reads Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling, and a witch posing as “a cashier in a supermarket” now works as “a top scientist”.
An emphasis on mental health has led to the removal of “crazy” and “mad”, which Dahl used frequently in comic fashion. A mention in Esio Trot of tortoises being “backward”, the joke behind the book’s title, has been excised.
The changes were made by the publisher and the Roald Dahl Story Company, owned by Netflix, with sensitivity readers hired to scrutinise the text.
In some instances, passages not written by Dahl have been added. In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches wear wigs ends with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”
In recent years, Dahl has become an increasingly divisive figure – not only accused of racism and misogyny, but anti-Semitism too. The latter was so apparent in his writing and private life that in 2020, the Dahl family issued an apology.
“The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements. Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl’s stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations. We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words.”
The Dahl estate owned the rights to the books until 2021, when Netflix bought them outright, building on an earlier rights deal. The US streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works. These are the first new editions since the deal, but the review began before the sale. “The current review began in 2020, before Dahl was acquired by Netflix,” said a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company. “It was led by Puffin and Roald Dahl Story Company together.”
The Telegraph, London
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