Word: bowdlerism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...BOWDLER'S LEGACY: A HISTORY OF EXPURGATED BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA, by Noel Perrin. Examining the literary atrocities of squeamish expurgators, the author has created a brilliant little work of cultural history full of wit and learning...
...BOWDLER'S LEGACY: A HISTORY OF EXPURGATED BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA, by Noel Perrin. Examining the literary atrocities of squeamish expurgators, the author has created a brilliant little work of cultural history full of wit and learning...
...BOWDLER'S LEGACY: A HISTORY OF EXPURGATED BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA by Noel Perrin. 296 pages. Atheneum...
What could prompt an educated man to change Lady Macbeth's most famous line to "Out, crimson spot"? Or to excise mention of Queequeg's underwear from Moby Dick? In framing answers, Noel Perrin, professor of English at Dartmouth, takes as his point of departure Dr. Thomas Bowdler, who had a passion for chess and prison reform and an aversion to London smog, sick people, and all writing that, as he put it, "can raise a blush on the cheek of modesty." Certainly the Family Shakespeare (first edition 1807, second edition 1818) became the most popular expurgation...
Licensed Hands. Delicacy, Perrin suggests, became an overrated virtue in the 19th century. No response rated higher than "being easily shocked." One proved one's sensitivity by one's blushes, as Dr. Bowdler indicated, and, if necessary, by fainting. It was clearly feminine behavior, and Perrin dares to hint that behind every successful bowdlerizer there is a woman. Perrin's real scoop, however, is the suggestion that the real Bowdler probably was not Thomas at all, nor his wife, but his sister Henrietta Maria, known as Harriet...