Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Bowdlerize

Bowdlerize , transitive verb

[After Dr. Thomas Bowdler, an English physician, who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1818.]

To expurgate, as a book, by omitting or modifying the parts considered offensive; to remove morally objectionable parts; -- said of literary texts.
It is a grave defect in the splendid tale of Tom Jones... that a Bowdlerized version of it would be hardly intelligible as a tale. — F. Harrison