de Grazia, Edward
1992 _Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law Of Obscenity And
The Assault On Genius_. New York: Random House.
(ISBN: 0-394-57611-X, $30.00)
Notes on this book by T.S. Davies, tsdavies@mailbox.syr.edu:
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De Grazia covers the application of the concept of obscenity in
attempts to censor books, films, and other "speech" throughout the
history of the United States in detail. He uses biographies and
personal letters, along with interviews (with living participants or
their descendants), to construct "insider" accounts of the events
occurring during many censorship cases, including the attacks on James
Joyce's _Ulysses_, on Lenny Bruce, on William Burroughs' _Naked
Lunch_, and many more recent cases. He also describes the work of
Anthony Comstock and other self- or state-appointed censors on the
American publishing industry.
Some recent cases (taken from a post I made which was abstracted in
the EFF's Computers and Academic Freedom archive):
1943-5 Various crime magazine distributors are prosecuted for
distributing various crime magazines under New York
obscenity law. (Law struck down by the U.S. Supreme
Court in _Winters_ v. _New York_.)
1946 Edmund Wilson's _Memoirs of Hecate County_ is seized
by John Sumner (the head of the New York Society for
the Suppression of Vice) under State obscenity laws.
(Upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in (I believe)
_Doubleday_ v. _New York_.) The book was not
republished in the United States until the 1960's, by
a subsidiary of Farrar, Straus, and Young.
1955 Samuel Roth imprisoned on charges of sending obscenity
through the mails (including advertisements and the
third issue of _American Aphrodite_, a hardbound
magazine which contained Aubrey Beardsley's "Venus and
Tannhauser" -- upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in
_Roth_ v. _United States_).
1958 The University of Chicago suppresses the Winter 1958,
issue of the _Chicago Review_, which contains material
by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. This
material was published in the first issue of _Big
Table_ in March, 1959, (by the editors who resigned
from the _Chicago Review_), and is seized by the
United States Post Office, and ruled obscene by the
Post Office's hearing examiner. It is set free by
Judge Julius Hoffmann under _Roth_ v. _United States_.
1961 Henry Miller's _Tropic of Cancer_ is published by
Grove Press and is declared obscene in various parts
of the country. The book is finally freed by the U.S.
Supreme Court in _Grove Press_ v. _Gerstein_ (decided
in conjunction with _Jacobellis_ v. _Ohio_, which
involved a film by Louis Malle called _The Lovers_.)
196? _Fanny Hill_ is found obscene by the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts. Overturned by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1966, in _Memoirs of a Lady of
Pleasure_ v. _Massachusetts_ [?].
1963 Proceedings against William S. Burroughs' _Naked
Lunch_ are begun in Massachusetts on the grounds that
it may be obscene. (Won in appeal in the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1966.)
1966 Ralph Ginzburg's conviction on charges of distributing
obscenity through the mails is upheld by the U.S.
Supreme Court in _Ginzburg_ v. _United States_.
1973 In _Miller_ v. _California_, the Supreme Court upholds
the conviction of a distributor of illustrated books
and films which were held to violate California
obscenity law, and partially redefines the conditions
under which an item can be found to be obscene.
Other prosecutions and decisions since then mostly deal with films,
photographic images, and artistic performances; including the various
attempts to pass anti-pornography legislation; the arrest of Dennis
Barrie, the director of the Cincinnati, Ohio, Contemporary Arts Center
in 1990 for the presentation of Robert Mapplethorpe's "homoerotic"
photographs; and the actions of the U.S. Congress to establish limits
on NEA grantees.
In _Redrup_ v. _New York_, the U.S. Supreme Court laid out a decision
which implied "that consenting adults in the United States ought to be
constitutionally entitled to read and acquire any publication that
they wished -- including concededly obscene or pornographic ones --
without governmental interference." (de Grazia 1992: 516) In
_Stanley_ v. _Georgia_, the Court "held that adults had a constitutional
right to possess, read, or watch concededly obscene books and films in
the privacy of their homes." (de Grazia 1992: 516)
The Burger Court chose to limit the interpretation of this decision to
the facts, however, and deny that the decision "implied that people had
a constitutional right to exhibit or sell such materials outside the
home, or that anyone had a constitutional right to bring them to his
home, for example, from abroad." (de Grazia 1992: 516) In July, 1990,
"the Rehnquist Court further narrowed the principle by holding that
the right of Americans to read and watch anything they wished in the
privacy of their homes did not include 'child pornography.'" [In
_Osborne_ v. _Ohio_.] (de Grazia 1992: 337)
So, assuming someone published a book that the Supreme Court could
define as obscene or as "child pornography", it could still be banned.
It's unlikely (though hardly impossible) to imagine a situation where
a book or other literary work would be banned for anything other than
obscenity, under the Supreme Court's current interpretation of the
First Amendment; but there is nothing to stop a publisher from
rejecting or being forced to recall a work under pressure from
customers (or potential customers). One recent case is Viking's
decision not to publish Bret Easton Ellis' _American Psycho_ under
pressure from groups offended by the actions of the book's main
character. (_American Psycho_ was later picked up by Vintage and
published as a Vintage Contemporary in 1991.)
