{"id":1094,"date":"2014-06-16T10:13:13","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T15:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historyapolis.com\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2024-01-10T13:43:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T19:43:35","slug":"it-would-hardly-be-an-open-shelf-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/2014\/06\/16\/it-would-hardly-be-an-open-shelf-book\/","title":{"rendered":"“It would hardly be an open shelf book”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Published June 16, 2014 by JaneAnne Murray<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Today’s guest blogger is JaneAnne Murray, a solo criminal defense lawyer based in Minneapolis and also Practitioner in Residence at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she teaches classes in criminal law and procedure.\u00a0 Tonight, she is presenting a Bloomsday Celebration in New York City for the Irish American Bar Association of New York, the centerpiece of which is the Quinn Memorial Address, to be delivered by the Hon. Gerard E. Lynch, Second Circuit Judge.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Happy Bloomsday!\u00a0 This is the day, 110 years ago, that was memorialized in James Joyce\u2019s masterwork Ulysses<\/em> \u2013 a brilliant, scatological, and lyrical journey through the streets of Dublin and the deep recesses of the mind of the book\u2019s protagonist, Leopold Bloom.<\/p>\n

The publication of the book in this country was an odyssey too, beginning in 1917, when two feisty mid-western women living in Greenwich Village, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, decided, with alacrity, to serialize the book in their literary publication, The Little Review.\u00a0 The magazine\u2019s motto was \u201cMaking No Compromise with the Public Taste,\u201d and did it not!\u00a0 The serialization didn\u2019t manage to get to the end \u2013 Bloom\u2019s masturbation on the beach while oogling the sexy Gerty MacDowell was simply too much for the secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who complained to the Manhattan District Attorney.\u00a0 In 1921, Anderson and Heap were prosecuted for distributing obscene material, and were defended pro bono<\/em> \u2013 and some say half-heartedly \u2013by Irish-American lawyer John Quinn, who famously described his clients as \u201cidiots\u201d and \u201cdamned fools\u201d for trying to publish Ulysses in this \u201cpuritan-ridden country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their conviction at trial could be viewed as a devastating blow for the First Amendment, or a public relations coup.\u00a0 In the ensuing decade, during which no American publisher was willing to risk a prosecution or, at least, afford the financial calculus of publishing the book, Ulysses<\/em> took on the mystique of the forbidden fruit \u2013 smuggled past U.S. customs officials, hidden in waistbands and luggage, and sold by bootleggers for hundreds of dollars. \u00a0In 1932, however, social mores had relaxed, and Random House \u2013 eyeing both a sales and political coup \u2013 decided to seize the moment.\u00a0 It orchestrated one of the most sophisticated litigations of its time, selecting a brilliant advocate, an enlightened venue, and a sympathetic judge to challenge the U.S. ban on Ulysses in U.S.A. v. One Book Called Ulysses<\/em>.\u00a0 The seizure of the book was a carefully planned affair \u2013 indeed the specific book to be seized was filled with all sorts of clippings, including literary reviews, so that these too would automatically be placed in evidence.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the plan almost went awry.\u00a0\u00a0 The customs agent, when he saw the familiar blue cover, was about to waive the item through, and the Random House representative had to beg him to seize it!<\/p>\n

And thus began the famous case.\u00a0 As part of its defense strategy, Random House solicited the views of librarians and booksellers across the country on their interest in purchasing a reasonably-priced copy of the book.\u00a0 The solicitation was hardly disinterested.\u00a0 It noted that Ulysses critics deemed it \u201cthe most significant prose work of the twentieth century,\u201d Random House thought the ban on the book \u201cunconscionable and vicious from the point of view of letters,\u201d and its survey was aimed at rallying \u201cintelligent and qualified public opinion\u201d in defense of the book.\u00a0 It then proceeded to ask the recipient for their \u201cfrank\u201d opinion . . .<\/p>\n

324 responses were returned, offering us a fascinating window into the literary and social tastes of the day.\u00a0 They include such nuggets as \u201cI\u2019m inclined to doubt its value as literature, for I have never been convinced Mr. Joyce knows how to write English;\u201d \u201cNever will it have any readers to amount to anything;\u201d \u201cIt is literary jazz, intriguing for sophisticated half morons;\u201d \u201cI read it and found it insufferably dull – not good enough to be worthwhile and not bad enough to be interesting;\u201d and this from a librarian in Los Angeles: “It is read here entirely by those wanting salacious literature. Our copy is practically untouched, except for the last 100 pages, which proves my point, I believe.”<\/p>\n

Three of the questionnaires came from Minneapolis, and the views expressed were cautious but respectful.\u00a0 All three acknowledged that the work likely had literary merit, but none believed the book should be freely available.\u00a0 Florence Mettler said she would buy a copy of the book for the North Branch of the Minneapolis Public Library, but added \u201cit would hardly be an open-shelf book.\u201d\u00a0 Lou Gordon, chief of the order department at the Minneapolis Public Library, said they already had a copy, though \u201c[i]t would not be and could not be a book for general circulation in a public library.\u201d\u00a0 He added that he thought the book\u2019s psychological importance was \u201cmuch exaggerated.\u201d\u00a0 Finally, famed Chief Librarian Gratia Countryman (who would be elected president of the American Library Association in 1934 and was considered one of the most influential librarians in the country) acknowledged that she had not read it, but agreed it had \u201cperhaps [.] influenced the stream of consciousness style.\u201d\u00a0 From critical reviews, however, she felt\u00a0 \u201csure that it would belong on restricted shelves.\u201d\u00a0 Her library \u201cprobably would not buy [it].\u201d<\/p>\n

Oral argument was heard on the case in 1933 before Southern District of New York Judge John Woolsey.\u00a0 In his presentation, Ulysses defense lawyer, Morris Ernst, highlighted some of the more favorable comments from the questionnaires \u2013 prosecutor Samuel Coleman would have had a field-day with the negative ones.\u00a0 But in the end \u2013 perhaps a foregone conclusion \u2013 Judge Woolsey issued his milestone legal decision on obscenity, holding that Ulysses, while tending towards the \u201cemetic,\u201d was not \u201caphrodisiac.\u201d\u00a0 Deciding to admit Ulysses into the United States, the judge was unfazed by \u201cthe recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds in [Joyce\u2019s] characters.\u201d\u00a0 After all, \u201cit must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic, and his season spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Random House immediately ordered a printing of 100 copies.\u00a0 It included Judge Woolsey\u2019s decision at the front of the book, to ensure that if news of the overturning of the ban did not filter down to the beat cop, a reader facing confiscation could open the book and spread the word.<\/p>\n

The questionnaires quoted here are from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. “How to Enjoy Ulysses” is from the James Joyce collection at the University of Buffalo in New York. Thanks to both of these institutions for sharing their materials with Historyapolis.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published June 16, 2014 by JaneAnne Murray Today’s guest blogger is JaneAnne Murray, a solo criminal defense lawyer based in Minneapolis and also Practitioner in Residence at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she teaches classes in criminal law and procedure.\u00a0 Tonight, she is presenting a Bloomsday Celebration in New York City for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[73,86,98,183],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4078,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/4078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}