1. Thomas Bowdler's last work was an expurgation of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published posthumously in 1826 under the supervision of his nephew and biographer, Thomas Bowdler the Younger.
17 Facts About Thomas Bowdler
1. 2.
Thomas Bowdler studied medicine at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where he received his degree in 1776, graduating with a thesis on intermittent fevers.
3.
Thomas Bowdler then spent four years travelling in continental Europe, visiting the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Italy, Sicily and Portugal.
4.
Thomas Bowdler returned to England in broken health and with a strong aversion to the medical profession.
5.
Thomas Bowdler devoted himself instead to the cause of prison reform.
6.
Thomas Bowdler was a strong chess player and once played eight recorded games against the best chess player of the time, Francois-Andre Danican Philidor, who was so confident of his superiority that he played with several handicaps.
7.
Thomas Bowdler won twice, lost three times, and drew three times.
8.
In 1800 Thomas Bowdler took a lease on a country estate at St Boniface, on the Isle of Wight, where he lived for ten years.
9.
The biography of Bowdler by his nephew, Thomas Bowdler, makes no mention of him ever marrying.
10.
From 1811 until his death in 1825, Thomas Bowdler lived at Rhyddings House, overlooking Swansea Bay, from where he travelled extensively in Britain and Europe.
11.
In 1818, Thomas Bowdler published an expanded edition of The Family Shakspeare, covering all 36 available plays.
12.
Thomas Bowdler's sister Jane Bowdler was a poet and essayist.
13.
Thomas Bowdler left bequests to the poor of Swansea and Box.
14.
In 1825 Bowdler's nephew, a Thomas Bowdler, published Memoir of the Late John Bowdler, Esq.
15.
Later in life, Thomas Bowdler realised his father had been omitting or altering passages he felt unsuitable for the ears of his wife and children.
16.
Thomas Bowdler felt it was worthwhile to publish an edition which might be used in a family whose father was not such a "circumspect and judicious reader" as to accomplish an expurgation himself.
17.
Thomas Bowdler lent his name to the English verb bowdlerise, which means "to remove words or sections from a book or other work that are considered unsuitable or offensive".