Augustus Gloop is no longer fat, Mrs Twit is no longer fearfully ugly, and the Oompa-Loompas have gone gender-neutral in new editions of Roald Dahl’s beloved stories.
The publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque.
The review of Dahl’s language was undertaken to ensure that the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, Puffin said.
References to physical appearance have been heavily edited. 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”, “titchy” or “no higher than my knee” but merely small. And where once they were “small men”, they are now “small people”.
Passages not written by Dahl have also been added. In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their 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 previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the Centipede sings: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat/And tremendously flabby at that,” and, “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire/And dry as a bone, only drier.”
Both verses have been removed, and in their place are the underwhelming rhymes: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute/And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and, “Aunt Spiker was much of the same/And deserves half of the blame.”
References to “female” characters have disappeared - Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a “most formidable female”, is now a “most formidable woman”.
“Boys and girls” has been turned into “children”. The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People and Fantastic Mr Fox’s three sons have become daughters.
Matilda reads Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling, and a witch posing as “a cashier in a supermarket” now works as “a top scientist”.
Mrs Twit’s “fearful ugliness” is reduced to “ugliness”, while Mrs Hoppy in Esio Trot is not an “attractive middle-aged lady” but a “kind middle-aged lady”.
One of Dahl’s most popular lines from The Twits is: “You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams.” It has been edited to take out the “double chin”.
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 words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the Big Friendly Giant in The BFG cannot wear a black cloak.
The changes were made by the publisher, Puffin, and the Roald Dahl Story Company, now owned by Netflix, with sensitivity readers hired to scrutinise the text.
The review began in 2020, when the company was still run by the Dahl family. Netflix acquired the literary estate in 2021 for a reported £500 million.
Sensitivities over Dahl’s stories were heightened when a 2020 Hollywood version of The Witches led to a backlash over its depiction of the Grand Witch, played by Anne Hathaway, with fingers missing from each hand.
Warner Bros was forced to make an apology after Paralympians and charities said it was offensive to the limb difference community.
That same year, the Dahl family and the company apologised for the author’s past anti-Semitic statements.
Matthew Dennison, Dahl’s biographer, said that the author - who died in 1990 - chose his vocabulary with care. “I’m almost certain that he would have recognised that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children," he said.
www.telegraph.co.uk
The publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque.
The review of Dahl’s language was undertaken to ensure that the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, Puffin said.
References to physical appearance have been heavily edited. 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”, “titchy” or “no higher than my knee” but merely small. And where once they were “small men”, they are now “small people”.
Passages not written by Dahl have also been added. In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their 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 previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the Centipede sings: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat/And tremendously flabby at that,” and, “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire/And dry as a bone, only drier.”
Both verses have been removed, and in their place are the underwhelming rhymes: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute/And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and, “Aunt Spiker was much of the same/And deserves half of the blame.”
References to “female” characters have disappeared - Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a “most formidable female”, is now a “most formidable woman”.
“Boys and girls” has been turned into “children”. The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People and Fantastic Mr Fox’s three sons have become daughters.
Matilda reads Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling, and a witch posing as “a cashier in a supermarket” now works as “a top scientist”.
Mrs Twit’s “fearful ugliness” is reduced to “ugliness”, while Mrs Hoppy in Esio Trot is not an “attractive middle-aged lady” but a “kind middle-aged lady”.
One of Dahl’s most popular lines from The Twits is: “You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams.” It has been edited to take out the “double chin”.
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 words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the Big Friendly Giant in The BFG cannot wear a black cloak.
The changes were made by the publisher, Puffin, and the Roald Dahl Story Company, now owned by Netflix, with sensitivity readers hired to scrutinise the text.
The review began in 2020, when the company was still run by the Dahl family. Netflix acquired the literary estate in 2021 for a reported £500 million.
Sensitivities over Dahl’s stories were heightened when a 2020 Hollywood version of The Witches led to a backlash over its depiction of the Grand Witch, played by Anne Hathaway, with fingers missing from each hand.
Warner Bros was forced to make an apology after Paralympians and charities said it was offensive to the limb difference community.
That same year, the Dahl family and the company apologised for the author’s past anti-Semitic statements.
Matthew Dennison, Dahl’s biographer, said that the author - who died in 1990 - chose his vocabulary with care. “I’m almost certain that he would have recognised that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children," he said.
Roald Dahl goes PC in a world where no one is 'fat' and the Oompa-Loompas are gender neutral
Sensitivity readers were hired to scrutinise the text with parts rewritten for a modern audience
www.telegraph.co.uk
