Puffin Random House, publisher of Roald Dahl’s works, has hired a company to make the author’s books more politically correct by removing references to race, gender, body size and other potentially offensive content. The move has prompted criticism that children are being shielded from difficult truths about the world, with some critics arguing that sanitising Dahl’s work removes important cultural commentary. I explore the history of bowdlerisation from Shakespeare in the 19th century to the more recent example of a revised version of Huckleberry Finn that removes the "n" word.

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