Matter of Obscenity (eBook)

The Politics of Censorship in Modern England

Christopher Hilliard (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2021
336 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-22611-8 (ISBN)

Infos

A comprehensive history of censorship in modern BritainFor Victorian lawmakers and judges, the question of whether a book should be allowed to circulate freely depended on whether it was sold to readers whose mental and moral capacities were in doubt, by which they meant the increasingly literate and enfranchised working classes. The law stayed this way even as society evolved. In 1960, in the obscenity trial over D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the prosecutor asked the jury, "e;Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?"e; Christopher Hilliard traces the history of British censorship from the Victorians to Margaret Thatcher, exposing the tensions between obscenity law and a changing British society.Hilliard goes behind the scenes of major obscenity trials and uncovers the routines of everyday censorship, shedding new light on the British reception of literary modernism and popular entertainments such as the cinema and American-style pulp fiction and comic books. He reveals the thinking of lawyers and the police, authors and publishers, and politicians and ordinary citizens as they wrestled with questions of freedom and morality. He describes how supporters and opponents of censorship alike tried to remake the law as they reckoned with changes in sexuality and culture that began in the 1960s.Based on extensive archival research, this incisive and multifaceted book reveals how the issue of censorship challenged British society to confront issues ranging from mass literacy and democratization to feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.8.2021
• Zusatzinfo: 1 table.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Amendment • A. P. Herbert • Arts Council • attempt • Barrister • Blasphemous libel • Blasphemy law • Cambridge University Press • Censorship • chairman • Chief Constable • civil service • Common Law • Confiscation • Consideration • Controversy • counsel • C. R. Hewitt • Crime • Customs • Decriminalization • defamation • defendant • deference • D. H. Lawrence • Director of Public Prosecutions • E. M. Forster • England and Wales • English law • European Commission of Human Rights • European Convention on Human Rights • European Court of Human Rights • Expert witness • Fanny Hill • Film censorship • freedom of speech • Hank Janson • Hicklin test • Home office • home secretary • Homosexuality • immorality • Imprisonment • Intention (criminal law) • John Stuart Mill • Jury • Lady Chatterley's Lover • Last Exit to Brooklyn • Law enforcement • lawyer • Lecture • Legal Advisor (Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants) • Legislation • Literacy • Literary criticism • Literary merit • Literature • mary whitehouse • Mervyn Griffith-Jones • Morality • Nationwide Festival of Light • newspaper • novelist • Obscene Publications Act 1959 • Obscene Publications Acts • obscenity • On Liberty • Pamphlet • Paperback • penguin books • Police • Politician • Politics • Pornographic film • Pornographic magazine • Pornography • Post Office Act • Precedent • Private Member's Bill • Private prosecution • Prosecutor • Prostitution • Publication • Public morality • Publishing • Recommendation (European Union) • Roy Jenkins • Sedition • Shame • Solicitor • Statute • Teach-In • The Juror • The Well of Loneliness • T. S. Eliot • underground press • V. • Victorian Era • Wolfenden Report • Writing
• ISBN-10: 0-691-22611-3 / 0691226113
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-22611-8 / 9780691226118