Page 90 - All About History - Issue 56-17

REVIEWS

All About History on the books, TV shows and

films causing a stir in the history world

CENSORED: A LITERARY HISTORY

OF SUBVERSION AND CONTROL

How to ban a book — from Wycliff to the web
Author Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis
Publisher British Library Price £25 Released 28 September
n 1748, John Cleland wrote the of translations of the Bible into English
infamous erotic novel Fanny Hill: and does not limit itself to canonical
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure literature. Here you’ll find comics (issue
while in debtors’ prison, owing 14 of Shock SuspenStories), graphic
I an especially forbidding £800 to novels (Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis)
one Thomas Cannon. The bawdy tale and magazines (OZ 28: The School Kids
became a huge popular success and got Issue). Nonfiction is also included in the
Cleland into a heap of trouble, charged form of Rex Feral’s Hit Man: A Technical
with ‘corrupting the king’s subjects’. But Manual for Independent Contractors. This
all was not lost: in correspondence with provided the modus operandi for an
the secretary of state’s law clerk, Cleland actual triple murder but had actually
was able to alert him to the publication been written under a pseudonym by a
of Ancient and Modern Pederasty, a divorced mother of two from Florida in
pamphlet defending homosexuality by the United States.
none other than Thomas Cannon. Notorious causes célèbres such as
Clearly revenge is sweet in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Ulysses and
world of 18th century obscenity, and Salman Rushdie’s fatwa are given
so is Matthew Fellion and Katherine incisive coverage, but the authors also
Inglis’ account of it. Censorship, which give plenty of space for the fight for gay
appropriately goes on sale during and indigenous rights, the vexed issue
Banned Books Week, explores 25 of prison censorship and self-censorship
significant cases of literary suppression. among early women writers.
The authors have brilliantly succeeded The multiple layers of censorship of
in explaining the complex history of slave narratives are explained through
censorship without getting bogged down the story of Mary Prince, who had her
in legalese or dumbing their account memoir bowdlerised by her publisher
down to merely salacious titbits of what before having to defend herself in court
the butler wasn’t supposed to see. against anti-abolitionists who accused
The Cleland chapter is a case in point: her of dishonesty.
as well as detailing the creation of Each chapter is entirely self-
Fanny Hill, the authors zoom through contained, which makes it easy to dip
the 1727 case that established the into sections on particular books, but
publication of obscenity as a criminal when characters, cases and pieces of
offence in English common law, US legislation crop up more than once, the
Supreme Court rulings and how the reader is helpfully referred to significant
assumed ‘incorruptibility’ of the British appearances elsewhere. “Clearly revenge is sweet in
police provided a legal loophole. All this The cumulative effect of Fellion the world of 18th century obscenity,
scholarly learning is presented with a and Katherine Inglis’ Censorship is a
wonderfully light touch. rewardingly nuanced and thoroughly and so is Matthew Fellion and
The scope of Censorship is broad. It compelling view of how the censorship
begins in the 1380s with the suppression of literature has developed over time. Katherine Inglis’ account of it”
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