Introduction
1. Traders in Prurience: Pariah Capitalists and Moral
Entrepreneurs
2. "Sex O'clock in America": Who Bought What, Where, How, and
Why
3. "Hardworking American Daddy": John Saxton Sumner and the New
Society for the of Vice
4. "Fifth Avenue Has No More Rights than the Bowery": Taste and
Class in Obscenity Legislation
5. "Your Casanova Is Unmailable'': Mail-Order Erotica and Postal
Service Guardians of Public Morals
6. The Two Worlds of Samuel Roth: Man of Letters and Entrepreneur
of
7. Erotica
8. Epilogue
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
This first examination of the trade in erotica during the 1920s and '30s provides an understanding of the evolution of both obscenity law and sexual explicitness in literature, and raises fascinating questions about moral control, idealism, and the marketplace in ways that continue to resonate today.
Jay A. Gertzman is Professor Emeritus of English at Mansfield University and has been actively involved with the National Coalition Against Censorship based in New York.
"[An] absorbing account of an often overlooked corner of American
publishing history."—Publishers Weekly
"Gertzman's book is important; it opens a new topic of study and
establishes groundwork for debate."—Journal of American History
"A major work of scholarship."—AB Bookman's
"A detailed and fascinating study."—The Library
"This excellent study deserves to be ready by any lawyer and
jurist. . . . It raises profound questions, which still haunt the
legal scene."—New York Law Journal
Ask a Question About this Product More... |