The Controversy Surrounding ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ And More

On Friday, The Telegraph reported that “hundreds” of words in Dahl’s books had been changed; the character Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now described as “enormous,” instead of “enormously fat,” as he was in the original 1964 version, and in The Twits, Mrs. Twit is simply “beastly” instead of “ugly and beastly,” as Dahl wrote in 1980.

The Roald Dahl Story Company said it worked with publisher Puffin Books and the group Inclusive Minds to make the “small and carefully considered” changes, and said it did so to make sure “Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.”

The RDSC said that it’s “not unusual to review the language used” when “publishing new print runs of books written years ago,” and it made the decision to make the revisions before it was purchased by Netflix with the plans of turning Dahl’s stories into streaming content.

Author Salman Rushdie—who has faced a fatwa over his book The Satanic Verses and was attacked last year—tweeted Dahl “was no angel but this is absurd censorship,” and said his estate should be “ashamed,” calling those who edited Dahl’s writing “the bowdlerizing Sensitivity Police.”

Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America, a group dedicated to literature and human rights, said the organization is “alarmed” at the changes, as “selective editing to make works of literature conform to particular sensibilities could represent a dangerous new weapon,” and not allowing readers the ability “to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society.”

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Monday, “we shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words,”—winking at the made-up language often used in Dahl’s stories—“I think it’s important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved and not airbrushed.”