DM Glittering Prizes Quiz...One Answer to get !

[littleplum50]

What was the name of the Victorian clergyman who 'cleaned up' Longfellow's poem, The Wreck of the Hesperus...replacing such offensive words as 'bull' with the more acceptable 'gentleman cow' ?

[angelap]

thomas bowdler

[littleplum50]

Thomas Bowdler was NOT a clergyman....nor was he Victorian ! Thanks for your effort !

There was a Scottish Reverend....Alexander B. Grosart, who published 'improved' editions of poetry...but these were largely of the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries !

[jno]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Quizzes-and-Puzzles/Question182223.html

[Celtigra3]

If you look in the Quizzes and Puzzles section, it was eventually agreed by most people that Thomas Bowdler was the answer and that the compiler had got it wrong!

[littleplum50]

The concensus opinion favours 'Thomas Bowdler' ; if the compiler really has made a booboo, is hanging ( Public, of course) too good for him/her ?

[lapsapchung]

I think v-e-r-y slow hanging would be just about right. I hope the answers are going to be published- if it IS Bowdler we can form a lynch mob, and if it isn't we'll have learned something new. Either way is better than not knowing.

[littleplum50]

Well.........The DM Quiz Answers are now published and ,yes, Thomas Bowdler,,,( 1754-1825) non-Victorian, non-Clergyman, dying a good 16years before the poem he is alleged to have expurgated was written, was, apparently the Victorian Clegryman who 'cleaned up' Longfellow's poem " The Wreck of the Hesperus" ....

Well Done, That Compiler ! Go to the bottom of the class !

Please direct your vituperative protests to :-

The Daily Mail Readers' Letters, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT