Word: bowdlerism
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Dates: during 1952-1952
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Equally shocking to later expurgators. e.g., Thomas Bowdler, were Gibbon's racy reflections on imperial sex life. Of the Empress Theodora he wrote: "After exhausting the arts of sensual pleasure she most ungratefully murmured against the parsimony of Nature," adding in a footnote, "She wished for a fourth altar on which she might pour libations to the god of love." No bowdlerizer, Editor Saunders lets Gibbon have...