P.G. Wodehouse’s ‘Jeeves And Wooster’ Books Changed For ‘Unacceptable Prose’

Deadline ^ | April 16, 2023 | Bruce Haring

[sphinx]

Penguin Random House has altered what it termed the “unacceptable prose” of author P.G. Wodehouse in new editions of his classic Jeeves and Wooster series.

The publisher also warned readers of “outdated” terms in the revamped works, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

[beethovenfan]

Shakespeare and the Bible are next. Seriously.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I sold a child “The Island of Adventure” by Enid Blyton. The cover was badly torn so it was not worth much but he wanted a book with a bird in it. His teacher, (not his parents his teacher) came in and subjected me to a screaming rant about how I sold an “inappropriate book” to a child.

I finally got her tell me what book and then asked her what was wrong with it. Apparently it is inappropriate for a book to have a black male (Jo-Jo) as one of the villains, apparently the other villains were just fine as they were British. I told her to swish her little tail out the door because his parents thought it was an ok book and that was what counted.

Later his mom told me it was one of the first books he had read and enjoyed and she wanted me to find the rest of the series.

[punknpuss]

PG Wodehouse was indisputably the funniest writer of the English language. Censorship is a cowardly, disgusting tactic of shallow and talentless people. Leave Bertie, Jeeves, Lord Elmsworth and the Blandings gang the hell alone!

[frank ballenger]

TV Bertie Wooster (Hugh Laurie) with one of his aunts “Oh, dash it all!”

Aunt: “I’ll have none of that kind of language. I’ll thank you to leave that kind of talk in the pump room where it belongs.”

[Tennessee Nana]

Enid was Canadian ...

Her books werent as famous in the US ...

But they were great reading ...

Our school library had many of them ...

[Dr. Sivana]

(2) Secondly, and even more importantly because it would be automatic and self-enforcing, we should then immediately end all copyright protections for all works of literature as well as all movies that have been bowdlerized by the current copyright owners. Their copyright would be deemed to extend only to their current censored version. They would be deemed to have abandoned the rights to the original, which would enter into the public domain.

That is a great idea. Fortunately, a good chunk of early Wodehouse is already public domain, and more becomes so every year. There is no shortage of publishers who reprint these things. I bet Dover Press has some. Just avoid the Penguin Editions.

This actually reminds me of my 10th grade Humanities class. We were assigned Romeo and Juliet. One of my classmates, Bill Moriarty, decided to save $1.75 and take a hard back version his family had on the shelf. When we were reading sections aloud in class, Bill called out, "Mine doesn't have that text, it just has six stars [asterisks]."

Yes, the classics were edited for sensitive material 70+ years ago, but the sensitivities were different.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It's easier to just entirely ban Huckleberry Finn than re-write it.

[rlmorel]

Funny. I am reading that again right now.

Frightening.

[frank ballenger]

In one of the opening talks on the TV Jeeves and Wooster series, Stephen Fry said Wodehouse managed to write all of his thousands of pages going through some of the worst periods of unrest, the Great Depression, two world wars and untold upheavals and deaths without the barest mention of any of them in his novels and stories.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I read her as a child because we were often in places that used to be part of the Empire. Her books were not brilliant literary works but they were thumping good yarns and even my brother (who was not a reader) read them.

They were books that on the boy/girl front went down the middle. Both boys and girls could be adventurous. Both boys and girls could be jerks. Both boys and girls could be smart. Both boys and girls could be athletic. Both boys and girls could fail.

You would think that would be a message appreciated by "modern audiences" but nah. :)

[goodnesswins]

I just finished a 1934? Or was it 1917...version of Huck Finn...today’s woke crowd would freak

[goodnesswins]

Same here...but luckily going thru 4 generations of stuff has netted me many old books

[cymbeline]

“The originals are all on Gutenberg for free”

Thanks for that! I’ll look into it tomorrow at work where I have time for creative curiosity.

Adjusting the content of books to make them more black-friendly is crazy, man!

[OldGoatCPO]

Recently bought early 1900 copies of the Little Black Mambo series. Read those as a kid in school. They are classical literature and should be preserved in their original format. Bought early Warner Bros Bugs Bunny DVDs as well. Get copies of History of the World Part I, it will be on the censored list soon.

[FreedomForce]

I’m amazed that this episode of Jeeves & Wooster hasn’t gotten yanked from youtube. And I’m glad I bought the series on DVD before someone decides to butcher it.

https://youtu.be/XxUvK3-HFsM

[zeugma]

Most of his books are available for free download from Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/783

[AndyJackson]

This makes my head hurt. The charm of P.G. Wodehouse is his bemusing and charming style that uniquely British way of being whimsical, succinct and dead on point all at the same time. A few other share this style such as C. Northcote Parkinson of Parkinson's law fame but also an historian of the Royal Navy and other things, such as being appointed the Raffles Professor of History at the new University of Malaya in Singapore.

A third such writer was John Mortimer of Rumpole of the Old Bailey fame.

I can't imagine the stuck up leftist grad-grind who thinks himself competent to edit one word of such luminaries of English style. They can only dull and tranish it and once the charm is gone no one will want to read a word of it.

[vaskypilot]

I do not have to look to know which episode. I do get a kick out of Martin Vlunes (Doc Martin) in the episode.

[Organic Panic]

These clowns need to be less niggardly with outdate terms they find offensive....

[T-Bird45]

“Recently bought early 1900 copies of the Little Black Mambo series.”

I assume you meant Little Black Sambo as written/illustrated by Helen Bannerman.