In recent months, the debate surrounding Roald Dahl’s books has been reignited due to Puffin Books’ decision to revise some of the language used in his works for children. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and author Salman Rushdie have both expressed their disagreement with this approach. However, it is not unusual for books for children to undergo revisions for new generations.
Thomas Bowdler rewrote Shakespeare’s plays for a family audience in the early 1800s, removing content he deemed inappropriate from the Bard’s previously published works. Charles Dickens wrote a furious essay in 1853 called Frauds on the Fairies criticising his former friend and illustrator George Cruikshank’s retelling of several fairy tales, which incorporated an anti-alcohol message. Abridged versions of classic works aimed at children were routinely published in the 20th century, including Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women and books not originally written for children, such as Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers or Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Roald Dahl agreed in 1973 to remove racist language from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, originally published in 1964. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) objected to Dahl’s original portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas as African “pygmies”. In a letter to The Horn Book, a magazine of children’s literature in 1973, Doris Bass of Dahl’s US publishers Alfred A. Knopf wrote that the changes made did not amount to “censorship”.
Dahl’s antisemitism was widely reported around the time of his death. His editors had entered discussions regarding the misogyny and racism in some of his other books. In some cases he listened and in others, he didn’t. Eventually, his US publishers had enough of his truculent behaviour and threatened to stop publishing him.
Children’s authors can fall out of popularity if they no longer resonate with readers. Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings series and Richmal Crompton’s Just William were still widely read during my childhood in the 1970s. Nowadays they are more often found in secondhand bookshops than libraries. Enid Blyton’s books have also been revised and updated for young modern audiences, including renaming some of the characters from the Faraway Tree series. Like Dahl, Blyton was challenged by her editors and publishers during her career, with her publisher declining to publish one of her books in 1960 because of its xenophobia.
Modernising the language of the Famous Five series did not prove popular, and in 2016 publisher Hachette abandoned the revisions. This may eventually be the case with the revisions to Dahl’s work, though in September 2021, it was announced that streaming giant Netflix had bought the Roald Dahl Story Company for a reported £500 million. Netflix is thought to be in production of an animated version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in partnership with actor and director Taika Waititi as well as an animated series based on Matilda.
It is clear that both Netflix and Puffin Books are interested in maintaining Dahl’s popularity and preserving his books for future readers. However, contemporary children’s author Philip Pullman suggests that instead of editing them, Dahl should be allowed to go out of print, as children’s books, including prizewinning works, so often do. Joan Aiken’s wonderful Mortimer and Arabel books and Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawn series have spent time out of print, although both have been revived by contemporary dramatisations. Perhaps Netflix’s adaptations will do the same for Dahl, preserving the essence of his popularity while removing the dehumanising language that many adults and children find objectionable.
