Tropic Of Cancer On Trial: A Case History Of Censorship by E.R. Hutchison [FIRST EDITION] 1968 • Grove Press

Tropic Of Cancer On Trial: A Case History Of Censorship by E.R. Hutchison 

FIRST EDITION • FIRST PRINTING [1968] GROVE PRESS

Hardcover with dust jacket in excellent condition. 

Dust jacket is pristine w only minor trace shelf wear; now housed in a new archival quality jacket protector. 

Book itself is in beautiful shape; looks and reads like new.

When Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" was first published in the United States in 1961, the novel was nearly thirty years old and its author had long been acknowledged as one of the century's important literary figures. Only in Miller's own country was his most famous book still forbidden, smuggled in from abroad, read furtively but with pride by everyone who took American literature seriously. It seemed that by the 1960's this country would be eager for a definitive edition of "Tropic of Cancer," and Grove Press accordingly arranged with Mr. Miller to publish the book.

Subsequent attempts at censorship in the United States shocked serious readers and civil libertarians alike, and reached a peak in the state of Wisconsin, which became a major battleground in the continuing war over freedom to read. Mr. Hutchinson's thorough research - including extensive first-hand interviews - and his wide-ranging documentation enhance this dramatic story of undercover and overt censorship, tense courtrooms, legislative debates, and ultimately by a State Supreme Court election that hinged on the "Tropic of Cancer" verdict. Besides a major author and a dedicated publisher, those who influenced events included lawyers and judges, literary figures, and district attorneys. News-dealers and booksellers, librarians and poets contributed important testimony.

"Tropic of Cancer" was on trial throughout the United States; from 1961 to 1964 there were more than sixty legal proceedings involving this one book. Although during the same period there were other cases of book and magazine censorship that form an important part of the legal history of twentieth-century America, at the center was "Tropic of Cancer" itself. As the distinguished lawyer Elmer Gertz says in his foreword, "Tropic of Cancer" will "both entertain and enlighten all who are concerned about the Bill of rights and the great creative drive of mankind."