A report on Obscenity and Lady Chatterley's Lover

Cover of an undated American edition of Fanny Hill, c. 1910

The 18th century book Fanny Hill has been subject to obscenity trials at various times (image: plate XI: The bathing party; La baignade)

Translator Sei Itō (left) and his publisher Hisajirō Oyama (right) at the first Chatterley trial in Japan.

The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan.

- Lady Chatterley's Lover

The trial of Penguin Books over their publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960 failed to secure a conviction and the conviction in the 1971 trial of Oz magazine was overturned on appeal.

- Obscenity

3 related topics with Alpha

D. H. Lawrence

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English writer, novelist, poet and essayist.

Photograph of Lawrence by Lady Ottoline Morrell, 29 November 1915

D. H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire

His best known novels—Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover—notably concerned gay and lesbian relationships, and were the subject of censorship trials.

Both novels were highly controversial and were banned on publication in the UK for obscenity, although Women in Love was banned only temporarily.

Penguin Books

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British publishing house.

Plaque marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Penguin Books by Allen Lane at 8 Vigo Street.

Penguin's English edition of Yuri Krimov’s novel The Tanker “Derbent"

The 80 Little Black Classics published in 2015 marking the 80th anniversary Penguin Books

Four Pelican book covers, showing the gradual shift in the design. From left – 1937 (three bands), 1955 (grid), 1969 (illustrated), and 2007 (a "Penguin Celebrations" throwback edition)

Just as Lane well judged the public's appetite for paperbacks in the 1930s, his decision to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence in 1960 boosted Penguin's notoriety.

The novel was at the time unpublished in the United Kingdom and the predicted obscenity trial, R v Penguin Books Ltd, not only marked Penguin as a fearless publisher, it also helped drive the sale of at least 3.5 million copies.

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)—Article 19 states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".

Freedom of speech

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Principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.

Orator at Speakers' Corner in London, 1974

Permanent Free Speech Wall in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.

Members of Westboro Baptist Church (pictured in 2006) have been specifically banned from entering Canada for hate speech.

Countries with laws against Holocaust denial

The Free Speech Flag was created during the AACS encryption key controversy as "a symbol to show support for personal freedoms".

Title page of Index Librorum Prohibitorum, or List of Prohibited Books, (Venice, 1564)

In Panegyricae orationes septem (1596), Henric van Cuyck, a Dutch Bishop, defended the need for censorship and argued that Johannes Gutenberg's printing press had resulted in a world infected by "pernicious lies"—so van Cuyck singled out the Talmud and the Qur'an, and the writings of Martin Luther, Jean Calvin and Erasmus of Rotterdam.

First page of John Milton's 1644 edition of Areopagitica, in which he argued forcefully against the Licensing Order of 1643

This 1688 edition of Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (1260) was censored according to the Index Librorum Expurgatorum of 1707, which listed the specific passages of books already in circulation that required censorship

George Orwell statue at the headquarters of the BBC. A defence of free speech in an open society, the wall behind the statue is inscribed with the words "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear", words from George Orwell's proposed preface to Animal Farm (1945).

An "unexpurgated" edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1959)

Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury.

The 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence was banned for obscenity in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, and India.