Puffin, an imprint of the book publisher Penguin Books, has begun rewriting classic literature in order to bring the works into line with contemporary progressive sensibilities.
The woke revisions to Roald Dahl’s body of work were first spotted by the British outlet The Telegraph, and before-and-after images circulated widely on Twitter.
The revisions show that Puffin’s “sensitivity readers” have eliminated descriptions of characters as “fat” or “crazy,” and they have turned Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompa’s gender neutral.
Augustus Gloop, the fat little boy in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who falls into a river of chocolate, is no longer described as fat.
Miss Trunchbull, a character in Matilda who has a great horsey face, is no longer described as having a “great horsey face.”
The “Cloud-men” in James and the Giant Peach have now become “Cloud-People.”
Dahl died in 1990, but Puffin owns the rights to his works, which apparently includes the right to make the writing less interesting and more banal.
You can see some other revisions made to Dahl’s work below.
