Several of the most extraordinary books of the 20th century had to overcome severe censorship challenges before they reached the reading public. D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned by the United Kingdom and the United States from 1928 until the 1960s because of racy language and explicit sexual content. Copies of Joyce’s magnificent 1922 novel, Ulysses, had to be smuggled into the United States until late 1933, when an American court finally deemed it fit for publication. Allen Ginsberg's long poem Howl had to endure an intense obscenity trial before it was finally declared not obscene in 1957.
Literary scholar Clay Jenkinson explores these dramatic incidents in the history of literary censorship with an eye to understanding the cultural revolutions of the 20th century rather than merely scoring points against the censors.
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