Thomas Bowdler | |
|---|---|
 Title page of Bowdler's best-known work | |
| Born | 11 July 1754 |
| Died | 24 February 1825 (aged 70) Swansea, Wales |
| Occupation(s) | Physician, editor |
| Notable work | The Family Shakspeare (1807) |
Thomas Bowdler LRCP FRS (/ˈbaʊdlər/; 11 July 1754 – 24 February 1825) was an English physician known for publishing The Family Shakespeare, an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's plays edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler. The two sought a version they saw as more appropriate than the original for 19th-century women and children. Bowdler also published works reflecting an interested knowledge of continental Europe. His last work was an expurgation of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published posthumously in 1826 under the supervision of his nephew and biographer, Thomas Bowdler the Younger. From his name derives the eponym verb bowdlerise or bowdlerize, meaning to expurgate or to censor something through the omission of elements deemed unsuited to children in literature and films and on television.[1]
- ^ "Filter Amazon streaming with ClearPlay". Archived from the original on 29 January 2016. Retrieved 25 December 2015.