and just as the bowlderize version shakespeare are attribuated to MR. Bowlder, even though his sister actually wrote them.. but it was unacceptable to admit that a proper victorian lady would know and understand what to censor!
I don't often do this, but there are several inaccuracies above I couldn't let pass unchallenged. The Bowdler reputed to have censored the Bard was a Dr., not a Mr. He also died when Victoria was 6. Presumably the bowdlerising attributed to him was completed before his death (were it not, it seems unlikely that such attribution would have been made). Since he died eleven years before Victoria ascended to the throne, whatever else his sister may have been, she was not a "Victorian" lady. Also, it transpires that both he and his sister were involved, at least according to Britannica:
(b. July 11, 1754, Ashley, near Bath, Somerset, Eng.--d. Feb. 24, 1825, Rhydding, near Swansea, Glamorganshire, Wales), English doctor of medicine, philanthropist, and man of letters, known for his Family Shakspeare (1818), in which, by expurgation and paraphrase, he aimed to provide an edition of Shakespeare's plays that he felt was suitable for a father to read aloud to his family without fear of offending their susceptibilities or corrupting their minds. Bowdler sought to preserve all Shakespeare's "beauties" without the "blemishes" introduced (he supposed) to please a licentious age. The first edition, the title of which was spelled The Family Shakespeare (1807), contained a selection of 20 plays that probably were expurgated by Bowdler's sister, Harriet.
