Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds (Banned Books) - Hardcover

Dawn B. Sova

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816033056 ISBN 13: 9780816033058

Publisher: NY: Facts on File, 1998

Synopsis

When Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata was banned from distribution through the mail (except for first class) in 1890, New York street vendors began selling it from pushcarts carrying large signs reading "Suppressed!" In 1961, the United States Supreme Court pondered whether D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover was lewd or literary. In 1969, the novel was required reading in many college literature courses. Changing sexual mores have moved many formerly forbidden books out of locked cabinets and into libraries and classrooms.

Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds, Third Edition examines the issues underlying the suppression of more than 120 works deemed sexually obscene.

New and revised entries include:

-America: The Book (Jon Stewart)
-An American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser)
-The Arabian Nights (Sir Richard Burton, trans.)
-The Art of Love (Ovid)
-Forever (Judy Blume)
-Gossip Girl series (Cecily von Ziegesar)
-How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Julia Alvarez)
-Lady Chatterly's Lover (D.H. Lawrence)
-Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
-Rabbit Run (John Updike)
-Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson)
-Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison)
-This Boy's Life (Tobias Wolff)
-Ulysses (James Joyce)
-and more.

About this title

About the Author:

Dawn B. Sova holds a Ph.D. from Drew University. She teaches English at Montclair State University and has served as a mentor for courses in American cinema at Thomas Edison State College. She is the author of Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe for Facts On File. She lives in Garfield, New Jersey.

From Library Journal:

The aim of this four-volume set is to spotlight some 400 works that have been censored, banned, or condemned because of their political, social, religious, or sexual content. The entries, which include a summary, censorship history, and brief bibliography, range widely from Aristotle through Galileo and on up to Adolf Hitler and Judy Blume. Such well-known prohibited works as de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, the Communist Manifesto, and Huckleberry Finn are included here, but so are many other works that are now less controversial, e.g., Milton's Areopagitica and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Some of the censorship histories are several pages long, but others are very short; Born on the Fourth of July gets only 50 words. Though most of the works are worth notice, too many describe fairly vapid objections: Fail-Safe was challenged by a school librarian who thought the book would undermine "America's confidence in their defense system." But as one might expect, many of the entries, such as the one for The Satanic Verses, are harrowing. Prepared by well-qualified scholars who have written and lectured extensively on censorship, the set is a very readable gathering of much useful information. It provides more depth and is more current than either Anne L. Haight's Banned Books (1978. 4th ed.) or ALA's Banned Books Resource Guide (1995). (Index not seen.)APeter A. Dollard, Alma Coll. Lib., Mt. Pleasant, MI
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: NY: Facts on File
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0816033056
• ISBN 13: 9780816033058
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282