Thomas Bowdler

From Conservapedia

Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was an English doctor and literary editor who was a pioneer of the provision of family-friendly literature. In 1818 he published his Family Shakespeare, a version of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare from which offensive material had been removed, thus enabling fathers to read from the plays to their wives and children without inadvertently stumbling upon obscenity or blasphemy. He subsequently edited the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon; this Family Gibbon was published posthumously in 1826.

Bowdler was also an advocate of prison reform, and an expert chess player.

Thomas Bowdler's name gave rise to the term 'Bowdlerise', meaning to remove offensive material from a text.