The Sheila Variations

Yesterday in History: August 7, 1934

The US Court of Appeals judged Ulysses by James Joyce to be NOT obscene and declared that the book could be admitted into the United States. Here's what the first American edition of that book looked like:

Gives me shivers. I must admit. It LOOKS important.

Morris L. Ernst, counsel for Random House - who successfully defended the book against obscenity charges in 1933-34 - wrote in his foreward to the 1934 edition:

It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of Judge Woolsey's decision. For decades the censors have fought to emasculate literature. They have tried to set up the sensibilities of the prudery-ridden as a criterion for society, have sought to reduce the reading matter of adults to the level of adolescents and subnormal persons, and have nurtured evasions and sanctimonies.

See Judge Woolsey's decision in its entirety here.

Let freedom ring!

This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.

Posted by sheila