|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries: |
Research categories | Follow us on Twitter |
Research categories
View all topics in the newsView all reference sources at Encyclopedia.com |
|||
Thomas Bowdler
Thomas Bowdler , 1754–1825, English editor. He is best known for his Family Shakespeare (10 vol., 1818), an expurgated edition for family reading that, although attacked for its prudery, was reprinted many times. Bowdler also edited (omitting passages of an irreligious or immoral tendency) selections from the Old Testament (1822) and Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (6 vol., 1826). His editorial activities gave rise to the term bowdlerize, which means to expurgate a book by deleting sections considered indelicate. |
|
|
Cite this article
"Thomas Bowdler." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Thomas Bowdler." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Bowdler.html "Thomas Bowdler." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Bowdler.html |
|
Bowdler, Thomas
Bowdler, Thomas (1754–1825), published in 1818 his Family Shakespeare, an expurgated version of the text. Bowdler's admiration of Shakespeare was profound, but he believed that nothing ‘can afford an excuse for profaneness or obscenity…’ His method was to cut, not to substitute, adding almost nothing except prepositions and conjunctions. But the cutting is severe and he executed similar excisions on Gibbon's Decline and Fall. His work gave rise to the verb ‘to bowdlerize’.
|
|
|
Cite this article
MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Bowdler, Thomas." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Bowdler, Thomas." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-BowdlerThomas.html MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Bowdler, Thomas." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-BowdlerThomas.html |
|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries:
HighBeam™ Research, Inc. © Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
The Encyclopedia.com advertising network includes:
