Podcast on History of Literary and Theatre Censorship

Kapitoly

The Most Famous Trial

30 Years of Censorship

The Trial Begins

A Circus in Court

The Verdict and the Aftermath

Walpole's Press War

Censorship by Mail and Malice

The Lord of the Stage

The Curtain Falls on Censorship

An Idea on Trial

A Novel in Pieces

Hardy vs. The Critics

A Book on Fire

Smuggling a Masterpiece

Dirt for Dirt's Sake?

Freedom to Read

Orwell and State Censorship

The Rise of Voluntary Censorship

The Unofficial Gatekeepers

The Spanish Civil War Revelation

The Animal Farm Struggle

Two Levels of Truth

The OZ Magazine

The Schoolkids Issue

Aversion Theory on Trial

The Verdict and Aftermath

Final Thoughts

Přepis

James: …and that single question basically lost the prosecution its entire case.

Lily: It’s incredible, right? He asked the jury if it was a book they’d want “your wife or your servants” to read. In 1960!

James: Talk about not knowing your audience. Let me back up and explain for everyone just joining us. You are listening to Studyfi Podcast.

Lily: And today, we’re diving into the scandal, the censorship, and the landmark trial of D.H. Lawrence’s novel, *Lady Chatterley’s Lover*.

James: Okay, so before we even get to the trial, why was this book so explosive? What did Lawrence do that got everyone so worked up?

Lily: Well, he wrote three different versions between 1926 and 1928, and the final one was packed with language that was completely taboo at the time.

James: Far more than anything people had seen in mainstream fiction.

Lily: Exactly. He knew it was unpublishable in England. He even offered it to several major publishers just to mock their inevitable rejections.

James: That’s bold. So what did he do?

Lily: He went to Florence, found a bookseller named Guiseppe Orioli, and had it published there. Lawrence was smart—he knew a banned, “dirty book” from a major novelist would be a guaranteed bestseller abroad.

James: And was he right?

Lily: Oh, completely. The first edition of 1,000 copies sold out instantly, even at a really high price. It became this forbidden object that everyone in the know wanted to get their hands on.

James: So for decades, you couldn't just walk into a store in Britain and buy it?

Lily: Not for thirty years! For all that time, the book was either outlawed or sold in versions that were so heavily censored they barely resembled what Lawrence wrote.

James: They were called bowdlerized editions, right?

Lily: That's the term. In the US, one publisher sold 1.5 million copies of what was called a “mutilated and emasculated drugstore paperback.”

James: I love that description. So people were buying it, but they weren't getting the real story.

Lily: Not even close. They got the plot, but all the controversial language and themes that Lawrence fought for were stripped out. Meanwhile, pirated, uncut copies were being smuggled into the country.

James: So what finally changed? How did we get from smuggled copies to a full-blown court case?

Lily: Two big things. First, in 1959, Britain passed the Obscene Publications Act. This new law allowed for a book to be saved if it could be proven to have “literary merit.”

James: Ah, so art could now be a defense against obscenity. That’s a huge shift.

Lily: It was massive. And second, a publisher in the US, Grove Press, had just won a similar case and was selling millions of copies of the unexpurgated *Lady Chatterley*.

James: So the folks at Penguin Books in the UK saw this and thought, “It’s our turn.”

Lily: Exactly! For the 30th anniversary of Lawrence's death, they announced they would publish the complete, uncut edition.

James: And they didn't just publish it for high-society readers, did they?

Lily: And that was the real issue. The reason the government decided to prosecute was the price. Penguin planned to sell it for 3 shillings and 6 pence—a price so low that literally anyone could afford it.

James: So the outrage wasn't just about the words, it was about who might read them.

Lily: Precisely. The book was leaving the connoisseur’s locked bookcase and heading for the public bus stop.

James: Which brings us back to that fatal question from the prosecutor, Mervyn Griffiths-Jones. “Is it a book you would wish your wife or your servants to read?”

Lily: Yes! It was such a patronizing, out-of-touch thing to say, and it completely alienated the jury. The defense, on the other hand, was brilliant. They assembled this army of 35 expert witnesses—academics, writers, critics, even clergymen—to argue for the book’s literary merit.

James: While the prosecution was just... counting swear words?

Lily: Literally! Griffiths-Jones stood in court and read out a list. He announced the book contained “30 ‘fucks or fuckings,’ fourteen ‘cunts,’ thirteen ‘balls,’” and so on.

James: You can’t make this stuff up. It sounds like a comedy sketch, not a legal strategy.

Lily: It backfired completely. Instead of shocking the jury, it just made the prosecution seem ridiculous and obsessed with the very words they were condemning.

James: So, what was the final verdict?

Lily: After a five-day trial, the jury read the book themselves, deliberated for just three hours, and found Penguin Books not guilty.

James: Wow. And the floodgates opened.

Lily: Completely. Penguin dedicated the next edition to the jury and sold two million copies in the first year.

James: A thank you note to the jury! That’s amazing.

Lily: It really was a cultural turning point. The poet Philip Larkin famously said that the 1960s really began with “the end of the Chatterley ban, and the Beatles’ first LP.”

James: So the trial's legacy wasn't just about this one book.

Lily: Not at all. It blew the doors open for paperback publishing. Suddenly, serious, challenging books with adult themes could be sold to a mass audience. Of course, it also opened the door for a lot of trash to be published, but it fundamentally changed what was considered acceptable in literature.

James: An incredible story of how one book and one trial can reflect, and even shape, an entire era's social attitudes. Now, let's shift gears and look at another author who challenged the status quo...

James: So it's not just about what gets banned, but *how* it gets banned. And that has a long, complicated history.

Lily: Exactly. We can even go back to eighteenth-century England. The liberty of the press was a huge topic then.

James: Really? I always think of that as a more modern fight.

Lily: Not at all. It was a major concern, especially because of one man: Robert Walpole.

James: Wait, the first Prime Minister, right? I think I know him from... Assassin's Creed.

Lily: That's the one! And he didn't just promote journalism that supported him. He actively tried to crush the opposition press.

James: So how did he do that? Did he just send guards to shut them down?

Lily: He was more subtle than that, and he used systems already in place. Think of it this way... he weaponized the postal system.

James: The mail? How on earth do you censor with the mail?

Lily: It's surprisingly effective. First, they shipped government-friendly newspapers for free. But more importantly, Post Office staff would just... stop the distribution of anti-government papers.

James: Whoa. So they'd just vanish in transit?

Lily: Pretty much. They'd also open and check the mail of publishers and printers. But his most efficient tool was the judicial system.

James: Okay, that sounds more familiar. Lawsuits and things?

Lily: Exactly. He used the law of 'seditious libel' for political purposes. They'd issue these super vague 'general warrants' for house searches and arrests.

James: That sounds terrifying. It lets them do whatever they want.

Lily: It was. The process itself was the punishment. They'd confiscate your assets, throw you in jail for ages, set insanely high bail... even if you were eventually found innocent, your newspaper could be forced to close down.

James: So that’s the press. But what about other art forms, like theatre? Was that also controlled?

Lily: Oh, even more so. In Britain, for centuries, the stage was controlled by one person: the Lord Chamberlain.

James: And what did he do?

Lily: He was the absolute censor. Every single script had to be submitted to him for approval. And there was no appeal. What he said, went.

James: No appeal at all? Not to a court or anything?

Lily: Nope. His job, as it was defined way back, was to restrain the “licentious insolence of Poets and their Actors.”

James: “Licentious insolence.” I love that. It sounds like a band name.

Lily: It does! And this idea of cleaning things up for moral reasons gave us a fantastic word. Ever heard of Thomas Bowdler?

James: I don't think so.

Lily: In 1818, he published 'The Family Shakspeare,' which was a version of Shakespeare with all the naughty bits removed. Thanks to him, we now use the verb 'to bowdlerize' when we talk about censoring a text.

James: So this Lord Chamberlain had total power for... how long?

Lily: Four hundred years! But things really came to a head in the 1960s. After the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, people started thinking state control of art had to go.

Lily: But the government fought back. In 1962, a bill to get rid of the Chamberlain’s power was defeated.

James: So what finally broke the stalemate?

Lily: A play called 'Saved' by Edward Bond. It had a scene where a baby is stoned to death in its pram.

James: Yikes. I can see why a censor might have issues with that.

Lily: To avoid the inevitable cuts, they staged it at a private theatre club. But the Lord Chamberlain didn't look the other way this time. The police showed up, and the theatre directors were charged and found guilty.

James: And that caused an uproar?

Lily: A huge one. Public protest grew, and Parliament took up the cause again. The final straw was another Bond play, 'Early Morning,' which was a vicious satire of Queen Victoria. Once again, police, charges... but this time, the system was at its breaking point.

James: And that was it?

Lily: That was it. In September 1968, the Theatres Bill became law. The Lord Chamberlain's office of censorship was abolished after four centuries.

James: What an incredible story. And it wasn't just happening in the UK, right? The US had its own battles, especially with film.

Lily: Absolutely. A key case was the film version of D.H. Lawrence's novel, *Lady Chatterley's Lover*.

James: Ah, the book we talked about before! I bet that caused a stir.

Lily: It was made in France, and when it came to the U.S., it was banned in New York. And here's the surprising part... it wasn't banned for being obscene.

James: It wasn't? Then why ban it?

Lily: It was banned because, and this is a quote from the law, its subject was “adultery presented as being right and desirable for certain people.” They banned it for having a controversial *idea*.

James: So you can't even show a certain point of view?

Lily: The distributors fought it all the way to the Supreme Court. And the court agreed with them. They said the First Amendment protects the spread of ideas, no matter how unpopular they are.

James: That's a really important distinction.

Lily: It is. Justice Potter Stewart wrote the opinion. But Justice Black added something I love. He said that any prior censorship violates the Constitution, and that judges have no special expertise to be a 'Supreme Board of Censors' for the nation's private morals.

James: Wow. So the court basically said, 'That's not our job.' It's a powerful statement on where the line should be drawn.

James: So, that serialization process really did a number on the novel. And Hardy wasn't quiet about it, was he?

Lily: Not at all! That's where his prefaces come in. He used them as his platform to fight back.

James: How exactly did he do that?

Lily: In the preface to the first book edition, he uses this really violent metaphor. He thanks the editors for letting him “piece the trunk and limbs of the novel together.”

James: Whoa, “trunk and limbs”? It sounds like he’s performing surgery on his own book.

Lily: Exactly! He saw his novel as a living thing that the Victorian censors had dismembered. It's a powerful image.

James: And he didn't stop there, right? He had a message for the readers too.

Lily: Oh, definitely. He basically dared any “too genteel reader” to remember that it’s better for an offense to come from truth than for that truth to be concealed.

James: So he was unapologetically defending the novel's controversial themes.

Lily: He was! And he kept that same exasperated tone in the prefaces for later editions in 1892, 1895, and 1912.

James: So this wasn't just a one-time thing for him.

Lily: Not at all. He repeatedly mentions his critics, which shows how much they were on his mind. It also helps explain why he was willing to make changes to the text.

James: Because he wanted to please his audience?

Lily: It seems so. But all of his prefaces share one common goal: to defend the topics in *Tess* as important truths.

James: So it wasn't just about selling books; it was about starting a conversation.

Lily: That’s the key takeaway. For Hardy, fiction was the perfect vehicle to address what he saw as the critical, unspoken issues in Victorian society.

James: That makes so much sense. He's using his characters not just to tell a story, but to make a much bigger point.

Lily: Exactly. And we see that so clearly when we look at the contrast between two of the main men in Tess's life...

James: So it wasn't just D.H. Lawrence, then. It sounds like a lot of Modernist writers were really pushing the boundaries of what was considered acceptable.

Lily: Absolutely. And that brings us perfectly to James Joyce. His novel *Ulysses* is probably the most famous case of this. It's a masterpiece, but boy, did it cause a stir.

James: Where did the trouble start?

Lily: Well, it was first published in Paris in 1921. The first couple of printings were distributed to subscribers without much of an issue. But then came the third printing in 1923.

James: And what happened?

Lily: Of the 500 copies sent to London, English customs seized 499 of them at the port in Folkestone. Only a single copy made it through.

James: No way! What did they do with them?

Lily: They burned them. Under the 1867 Customs Act, the books were considered indecent, and the publisher, Harriet Weaver, couldn't save them.

James: They actually burned the books? That's incredible.

Lily: It is. After that, British customs would search the luggage of tourists coming back from France, looking for hidden copies to confiscate and destroy. It was literary contraband!

James: Wow. So was it the same story in America?

Lily: Oh, you bet. The trouble actually started even before the full book was published. A magazine called *The Little Review* serialized some chapters, and its editor, Margaret Anderson, was prosecuted.

James: So she went to jail for it?

Lily: She was fined, and would have gone to prison rather than pay. But here's the funny part—another woman who hated the book paid the fine for her. She didn't want to make Anderson a martyr for the cause!

James: That's amazing. So the book's biggest hater accidentally helped the cause!

Lily: Exactly! But when the full book was released, the demand in America was so huge that around 30,000 pirated, censored editions were printed just to keep up.

James: And then a publisher decided to fight back, right?

Lily: That's right. In 1933, Random House wanted to publish an uncut version. So they actually arranged to have a copy “smuggled” into the country so it would be seized by Customs, specifically so they could challenge the law in court.

James: A setup! I love it. So what was the outcome of the trial?

Lily: It led to a landmark ruling by Judge John M. Woolsey. And his decision was so insightful. He got what Joyce was doing.

James: What did he say?

Lily: He argued that Joyce was being loyal to his artistic technique. He wasn't just using so-called “dirty words” for shock value. He said Joyce was honestly trying to show what his characters were really thinking.

James: That makes total sense. He was capturing the 'stream of consciousness' we talked about.

Lily: Precisely. The judge even called the words “old, Saxon words” that the characters would have naturally used. He admitted the book could be brilliant, dull, and even disgusting at times...

James: But it wasn't just “dirt for dirt’s sake.”

Lily: That was the key phrase from his ruling! He said every word was like a piece of a mosaic, contributing to the larger picture Joyce was creating.

James: So that ruling changed everything in the U.S.?

Lily: It did. The decision was upheld in 1934, and the book was finally free from censorship in America. Unexpurgated editions appeared a few years later.

James: And in England? Did they have a big court case too?

Lily: Nope. After the American ruling, the prosecutions in England just… faded away. They quietly stopped confiscating and burning the book.

James: So after all that drama, it just fizzled out. It's fascinating how one court's decision could have such a global impact on literature.

James: So it's not just about governments officially banning books. The whole idea of censorship is way more subtle than that.

Lily: Exactly. And there's no better case study than George Orwell. His early writing was a blistering critique of British imperialism.

James: You'd think he'd be on the government's naughty list from day one then.

Lily: You would! But he only had one direct clash with state censors. A couple of detectives showed up at his cottage to confiscate some books he got in the mail.

James: Just once? That’s it?

Lily: That's it. And here's the surprising part—Orwell wasn't actually against official censorship in principle, especially during a war. He was even happy to work within its rules when he was at the BBC.

James: Okay, so if he wasn't worried about the government, what was he worried about?

Lily: He was increasingly concerned with what he called 'voluntary censorship'. This is where the real drama starts. It all came to a head with his book, *The Road to Wigan Pier*.

James: That was his deep dive into poverty and unemployment in the north of England, right?

Lily: That's the one. The book was in two parts. The first part described the poverty he saw, but the second was a sharp analysis of the problems with British socialism.

James: And I'm guessing the publisher didn't love that part.

Lily: Not at all! The publisher, Victor Gollancz, tried his best to 'persuade' Orwell to just drop the entire second half.

James: But he didn't, did he?

Lily: He stood firm. And when the book came out, it drew a huge stream of protest from many on the left. He'd poked the bear.

James: So this 'voluntary censorship' isn't just one person making a decision. It's more like... peer pressure from the entire literary world?

Lily: Precisely. Orwell said it came from an unofficial literary establishment, an 'intelligentsia' that was both social and ideological. At the time, their prevailing belief was pro-Soviet socialism.

James: So if you didn't toe that line, you were out.

Lily: You were in trouble. Orwell identified two kinds of socialists he despised. The first were the 'dull, empty windbags'.

James: He did not hold back!

Lily: The second group, the 'scientific' socialists, were the ones who really scared him. He said they saw socialism as a set of reforms 'they', the clever ones, would impose on 'them', the lower orders.

James: He saw totalitarianism in that.

Lily: He absolutely did. And it was this group that held the power to enforce voluntary censorship, and they were generally in thrall to the Soviet Union.

James: What was the moment that made him realize just how powerful this group was?

Lily: His experience in the Spanish Civil War. That was the real eye-opener. He fought with a group called the POUM brigade—basically a mix of anti-Stalinist fighters.

James: And he saw the Soviet-backed communists trying to eliminate them firsthand.

Lily: He did. He barely escaped with his life. So he gets back to Britain, ready to expose what he saw, and... hits a brick wall.

James: Let me guess, the publishers weren't interested?

Lily: Worse. The editor of the *New Statesman* flat-out refused his article because it 'controverted the political policy of the paper'. Even his own publisher, Gollancz, told him he wouldn't publish the book, saying it would harm the fight against fascism.

James: Wow. So what became *Homage to Catalonia* was basically suppressed by his own side.

Lily: Completely. It was a commercial disaster. The first print run was only 1,500 copies, and most of those were still unsold when Orwell died.

James: This is all leading directly to *Animal Farm*, isn't it?

Lily: It sure is. Once the USSR became a British ally in World War Two, Orwell's anti-Stalin views were suddenly seen as unpatriotic. Finding a publisher for *Animal Farm* was impossible.

James: For one of the most famous books of the 20th century?

Lily: Yep. One publisher, Jonathan Cape, was interested but then got a quiet word from the Ministry of Information that publishing it would be 'highly ill-advised'.

James: Unbelievable. What was the excuse?

Lily: Had it been a general attack on dictatorship, it would've been fine. But it was so clearly aimed at Stalin. An American publisher even turned it down, claiming there was no market for animal stories.

James: No market for animal stories! That’s got to be the worst publishing excuse of all time.

Lily: It's incredible. The book that's arguably the greatest satire since *Gulliver's Travels* couldn't find a home. It was finally published just three days after the war ended in August 1945.

James: So when we talk about Orwell and censorship, it was happening on two different levels for him.

Lily: Exactly. The first was immediate and personal—he literally couldn't get his work published. That forced him to think deeply about how censorship works.

James: And the second level was bigger?

Lily: Much bigger. It was about the relationship between telling the truth and language itself. For Orwell, a writer's prime responsibility is to tell the truth. He saw that the corruption of language was a tool of oppression.

James: And those two concerns—the personal struggle and the philosophical one—come together perfectly in his final novel.

Lily: They absolutely do. Which brings us, of course, to *Nineteen Eighty-Four*.

James: So that covers literature, but that same fight over censorship was happening everywhere, right? Especially with the counterculture magazines of the 60s.

Lily: Absolutely. And one of the most famous examples is the OZ magazine trial. OZ started in Australia, but the British version launched in 1967 and quickly dove into psychedelia.

James: What was their philosophy?

Lily: The editor, Richard Neville, had a very direct credo. He said “the weapons of revolution are obscenity, blasphemy and drugs.”

James: Okay, so he wasn't exactly trying to fly under the radar. I can see how that would attract some attention.

Lily: Exactly. They saw pornography as a political weapon. It was creative, popular, and deeply controversial.

James: So what finally pushed the authorities to act?

Lily: It all came to a head with OZ 28, the “Schoolkids Issue.” The magazine invited teenagers to edit and create an entire issue themselves.

James: That sounds like a cool idea, actually.

Lily: It was! The kids wrote articles and drew illustrations. But the adult staff handled the cover, which was... provocative, and the personal ads section, which often had soft-core content.

James: Ah, there's the catch. So they let the kids take the credit, and the fall?

Lily: Pretty much. After two police raids, the three directors of OZ were charged under the Obscene Publications Act.

James: And that led to England's longest-ever obscenity trial.

Lily: Yep. Nearly six weeks long. The defense argued this wasn't about a dirty magazine, but about liberty and freedom of speech.

James: The classic argument. Did it work?

Lily: It was tough. They had expert witnesses, but it was hard to argue for the “artistic excellence” of some, uh, very crude schoolkid drawings.

James: I can only imagine. Sounds like a tough sell.

Lily: So the defense got creative and introduced the “aversion theory.” They argued the material was so unpleasant it would actually repel readers from perversion, not encourage it.

James: Wait, so the argument was “it’s so bad it’s good for you”?

Lily: That's one way to put it! And that defense was actually used in other trials later.

James: Wild. But... did the jury buy it?

Lily: Nope. All three were found guilty. And while awaiting sentencing, their long hippie hair was cut to regulation length in prison.

James: That's just insulting. A symbolic move.

Lily: For sure. The tabloids loved it, but it backfired by creating a lot of public sympathy. The sentences were harsh—up to 15 months in jail. People even burned the judge in effigy.

James: Wow. So the appeal courts stepped in?

Lily: They did. Bail was granted, and the appeal judges made it clear the sentences were excessive, though the editors were banned from working on the magazine.

James: What a story. From banned books to magazine trials, it's incredible to see how the battle for free expression has evolved.

Lily: It really is. It shows that these aren't just old court cases; they're crucial moments that shaped the cultural and legal world we live in today. The key takeaway is that the line is always being debated and redrawn.

James: A perfect place to end. A huge thank you to everyone for listening to this season of Studyfi Podcast. We've had a blast.

Lily: We really have. We hope you learned a lot. Until next time, stay curious!

James: Goodbye everyone!