Bowdler

Bowdler, Thomas (1754-1825), an English editor of Shakespeare and Gibbon, whose chief claim to note arises from the fact that his name - like that of Captain Boycott - has given the English language a new word. He made it his special province to look after the morals of his neighbours, and to this end issued an expurgated edition of Shakespeare; and in the latter part of his life he prepared a similar edition of Gibbon, from which all passages that he considered of an immoral or irreligious tendency were omitted. He was undoubtedly a well-meaning man; luckily his editions are not cheap, so people can let them alone.