More than 30 years after his death, Roald Dahl’s books are going through changes to keep up with modern sensibilities.
“Children’s loss” is the view of Standard writer Melanie McDonagh, as she detailed some of the edits: “The more we scrutinise the changes by the sensitivity readers (employed by almost every publisher), the worse they look. It’s not just that Augustus Gloop is no longer ‘fat’, just ‘enormous’. The readers have removed the adjectives ‘black’ and ‘white’ — you can no longer be ‘white’ with fear. They actively insert sentiments where they feel the author fell short: so where witches are described as bald beneath their wigs (a terrifying touch), they add, reassuringly, that there are other reasons why women might wear wigs and ‘there’s nothing wrong with that’. Thank you for that.”
