Anderson, Heap, Ulysses convicted of vice: Ulysses banned from print in US
Daily News, 23 February, 1921, p.1. Chronicling America
One hundred years ago today … Margaret Anderson (the “village Writer” above) and Jane Heap, editors of The Little Review, were found guilty of publishing vice–vice in the form of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Their trial in the court of Special Sessions wound down with them guilty of obscenity under section 1141 of the Penal Code.
New York Herald, 22 February, 1921, p.8. Chronicling America
New York Herald, 22 February, 1921, p.8. Chronicling America
NY1920s has been checking in on the case of Anderson, Heap, and Ulysses occasionally: see, especially, the thorough report by guest posters Cooper Casale and Sean Latham last December 9th.
As we have reported, Anderson and Heap were arrested and charged on October 21, 1920 by John Sumner of the Vice Squad. The offending publication was the July-August issue of the Little Review and its latest installment of Ulysses, from the Nausikaa chapter.
In February 1921, the case went to trial. The defendants were represented by John Quinn, who, according to Joseph M. Hassett, botched the defense in numerous ways.
Note: we have seen John Quinn previously on this site, sometimes in the company of the Yeats family, sometimes in his capacity as art collector.
Judge John J. McInerney offered Anderson and Heap what he considered a “very lenient” penalty: a choice of 10 days in prison or $50 fines (Birmingham, 196).
McInerney’s pronouncement about Ulysses was that it is “unintelligent … the work of a disordered mind.”
In a letter to Ezra Pound, Quinn pointed out the lines in Ulysses that had caught Sumner’s eye:
Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish … But then why don't all women menstruate at the same time with same moon?
Wonder is it bad to go with them then.
Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt.
Did she know what I? Course.
Lord I am wet.
For this relief much thanks.
Short snooze now if I had. And she can do the other.
Due to the court’s ruling, Ulysses would not be printed legally in the US until 1934.
References/Further reading
Birmingham, Kevin. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses. United Kingdom, Penguin Press, 2015.
Hasset, Joseph H. “literature Meets Law in Court: The Trials of Ulysses.” Jonathan Goldman, ed. Joyce and the Law. Gainesville, UP of Florida, 2017.
– Jonathan Goldman, February 21, 2021
TAGS: censorship, literature, law, vice, modernism, Irish