Thomas Bowdler (July 11, 1754 – February 24, 1825), an English physician, has become (in)famous as the editor of a children's edition of William Shakespeare, the Family Shakespeare, in which he "endeavoured to remove every thing that could give just offence to the religious and virtuous mind." For example, the death of Ophelia in Hamlet was euphemized into an accidental drowning rather than the deliberate suicide implied by Shakespeare.

His name lives on in the eponym bowdlerization (adjective bowdlerized), to describe the process of censorship by arbitrary deletion of "objectionable" material from a work of literature to "purify" it, rather than banning the work outright.

Bowdler was neither the first nor the last to prepare such "pure" or "school" editions of books. An early approach, beginning around the 1780s, was the production of selections from an author's work, chosen by an editor to be inoffensive.

Bowdler produced the work for which he is famous after retiring to the Isle of Wight. He later settled in south Wales where he died, and is buried at Oystermouth near Swansea. His large library was donated to the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Chess

Bowdler was also quite a strong chess player for his day. The first recorded game to feature a double Rook sacrifice was played between Bowdler (white) and H. Conway at London in 1788:

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3. d3 c6 4. Qe2 d6 5. f4 exf4 6. Bxf4 Qb6 7. Qf3 Qxb2 8. Bxf7+ Kd7 9. Ne2 Qxa1 10. Kd2 Bb4+ 11. Nbc3 Bxc3+ 12. Nxc3 Qxh1 13. Qg4+ Kc7 14. Qxg7 Nd7 15. Qg3 b6 16. Nb5+ cxb5 17. Bxd6+ Kb7 18. Bd5+ Ka6 19. d4 b4 20. Bxb4 Kb5 21. c4+ Kxb4 22. Qb3+ Ka5 23. Qb5# 1-0

Bowdler also played the great Philidor,[1] who was so much stronger than anyone else in the world that he gave odds.

References

• Dr. Bowdler's Legacy: a history of expurgated books in England and America, by Noel Perrin. David R. Godine, Boston, 1969. ISBN 0-87923-861-5.