Its most celebrated exemplar was Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), editor of The Family Shakespeare, in Ten Volumes; in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family. The omissions were indeed striking. Derogatory references to clergymen were expunged, parts of the body were not referred to, the word ‘body’ itself was generally replaced with the word ‘person’, and immoral characters such as the prostitute Doll Tearsheet in Henry IV Part II disappeared entirely.
