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Roald Dahl once warned his publishers that he would send the 'enormous crocodile' to 'gobble them up' if they changed his words

Feb 26, 2023, 23:38 IST
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Roald Dahl writing at home, United Kingdom, 1965.Leonard Mccombe/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
  • Roald Dahl said he would send his "enormous crocodile" after publishers who changed his works, per The Guardian.
  • Dahl's books have recently been updated to remove words such as "fat" and "crazy."
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Children's author Roald Dahl once warned publishers that he would send his "enormous crocodile" after publishers who ever changed his words, according to The Guardian, which cited a supposed recorded conversation with the author from 1982.

Latest editions of Dahl's books have been updated to remove words like "crazy," "fat," and "ugly," The Telegraph reported. According to The Guardian, book publisher Puffin also hired "sensitivity readers" to read through Dahl's books and rewrite them with revisions so that they "can continue to be enjoyed by all today," according to The Guardian. After the controversy surrounding the changes, Puffin said on Friday that it would continue publishing both revised and unrevised versions of Dahl's works.

According to The Guardian, in the newest edition of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Augustus Gloop is now described as "enormous" instead of "enormously fat."

"The Enormous Crocodile," one of Dahl's most beloved books about a giant crocodile that eats kids, "we eat little boys and girls" was changed to "we eat little children."

In a newly resurfaced transcript, Dahl said that he had "warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books, they will never see another word from me," The Guardian reported.

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"When I am gone, if that happens, then I'll wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the 'enormous crocodile' to gobble them up," he says in the recording, according to the outlet.

The conversation between Dahl and Francis Bacon, an Irish painter, was recorded in 1982 at Dahl's home in Buckinghamshire, the outlet reported. Writer Barry Joule recorded the conversation with the permission of both men and transcribed the recording, which he says was inadvertently destroyed afterward, according to The Guardian.

Joule told The Guardian that Dahl and Bacon were "pleasantly oiled with drink and in a good mood" during the conversation.

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