Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship by Barney Rosset

Author:Barney Rosset
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: BIO026000, BIO025000
ISBN: e9781682190456
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2016-07-12T16:00:00+00:00

It occurred to me, and I am sure it occurred to many other publishers, that since the book was written in 1928 the emotional maturity of the American people has undergone a great change. … It occurred to me that it would be incomprehensible if this book were published today that the public would be shocked, offended, or would raise any outcry against it; but rather they would welcome it as the republishing, the bringing back to life, of one of our great masterpieces, and therefore I went ahead and published it. Thus far, all of my anticipated feelings have been rewarded with what I expected to happen as having happened, with the exception of this hearing.39

The entire proceeding was conducted in one long day. Rembar requested that the ban be lifted while a decision was being written, but Ablard decided that this was not within his jurisdiction.

Two weeks later, on my thirty-seventh birthday, May 28, 1959, Ablard came to his so-called decision—which was that there was no decision. Apparently sympathetic to our case, he had passed the ball to Postmaster General Summerfield, stating that overturning the ban on Lady Chatterley would “cast a doubt on the rulings of a coordinate executive department.”40 We again asked that the ban be lifted but received no reply. On June 10, 1959 I sued the Postmaster of New York City, Robert K. Christenberry, who was in possession of the books. but Postmaster General Summerfield’s decision came the following day.

Based on standing law, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was found to be obscene despite Grove’s testimony:

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