The trouble with censoring Jeeves and Wooster

It would take longer than I’ve got to comb through copies of Thank you, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, to find out the ways in which they’ve been edited, ‘minimally’, to remove offensive language, but I think we can work out which bits may have fallen foul of the thought police. Penguin Random House have informed readers of the latest edition:

‘Please be aware that this book was published in the 1930s and contains language, themes and characterisations which you may find outdated. In the present edition we have sought to edit, minimally, words that we regard as unacceptable to present-day readers.’ 

I can only say that, reading Young Men in Spats and a few other PGW stories lately, I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t occur to anyone to submit it to sensitivity readers. 

We wouldn’t have known that Wodehouse was being expurgated if it weren’t for the Sunday Telegraph. Good for them, and to the Daily Telegraph for spotting that Roald Dahl had been bowdlerised.