Bookleggers and Smuthounds

The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940

Author: Jay Gertzman

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

ISBN: 9780812217988

Category: History

Page: 424

View: 9692

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Between the two world wars, at a time when both sexual repression and sexual curiosity were commonplace, New York was the center of the erotic literature trade in America. The market was large and contested, encompassing not just what might today be considered pornographic material but also sexually explicit fiction of authors such as James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, and D.H. Lawrence; mail-order manuals; pulp romances; and "little dirty comics." Bookleggers and Smuthounds vividly brings to life this significant chapter in American publishing history, revealing the subtle, symbiotic relationship between the publishers of erotica and the moralists who attached them—and how the existence of both groups depended on the enduring appeal of prurience. By keeping intact the association of sex with obscenity and shameful silence, distributors of erotica simultaneously provided the antivice crusaders with a public enemy. Jay Gertzman offers unforgettable portrayals of the "pariah capitalists" who shaped the industry, and of the individuals, organizations, and government agencies that sought to control them. Among the most compelling personalities we meet are the notorious publisher Samuel Roth, "the Prometheus of the Unprintable," and his nemesis, John Sumner, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, a man aggressive in his pursuit of pornographers and in his quest for a morally united—and ethnically homogeneous—America.
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Newsletter

Author: N.A

Publisher: Association of Research Libr

ISBN: N.A

Category: Library science

Page: N.A

View: 3083

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Wole Soyinka

A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources

Author: Henry Louis Gates,Professor Ketu Katrak

Publisher: Greenwood Publishing Group

ISBN: 9780313239373

Category: Reference

Page: 107

View: 1918

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Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries

Volume 30: Publications of 1999 and additions from the preceding years

Author: Dept. of Special Collections of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

ISBN: 9781402016868

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 615

View: 7913

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The Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries aims at recording articles of scholarly value which relate to the history of the printed book, to the history of arts, crafts, techniques and equipment, and of the economic social and cultural environment, involved in its production, distribution, conservation and description.
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