Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court clarifying the legal definition of obscenity as material that lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". The ruling was the origin of the three-part judicial test for determining obscene media content that can be banned by government authorities, which is now known as the Miller test.
Lady Chatterley's Lover is the final novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Florence, Italy, and in 1929, in Paris, France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books, which won the case and quickly sold three million copies. The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical relationship between a working-class man and an upper-class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable profane words. It entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure—popularly known as Fanny Hill—is an erotic novel by the English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel". It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.
John Cleland was an English novelist best known for his fictional Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, whose eroticism led to his arrest. James Boswell called him "a sly, old malcontent".
Naked Lunch is a 1959 novel by American author William S. Burroughs. The novel does not follow a clear linear plot, but is instead structured as a series of non-chronological "routines". Many of these routines follow William Lee, an opioid addict who travels to the surreal city of Interzone and begins working for the organization "Islam Inc."
The Rainbow is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1915. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, focusing particularly on the individual's struggle to growth and fulfilment within the confining structures of English social life. Lawrence's 1920 novel Women in Love is a sequel to The Rainbow.
The Gift is Vladimir Nabokov's final Russian novel, and is considered to be his farewell to the world he was leaving behind. Nabokov wrote it between 1935 and 1937 while living in Berlin, and it was published in serial form under his pen name, Vladimir Sirin.
Nathan David Perlman was an American lawyer and politician from New York who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1920 to 1927.
Bill the Conqueror is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 13 November 1924 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States on 20 February 1925 by George H. Doran, New York, the story having previously been serialised in The Saturday Evening Post from 24 May to 12 July 1924.
Look at the Harlequins! is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, first published in 1974. The work was Nabokov's final published novel before his death in 1977.
Mary Virginia Terhune, also known by her penname Marion Harland, was an American author who was prolific and bestselling in both fiction and non-fiction genres. Born in Amelia County, Virginia, she began her career writing articles at the age of 14, using various pennames until 1853, when she settled on Marion Harland. Her first novel Alone was published in 1854 and became an "emphatic success" following its second printing the next year. For fifteen years she was a prolific writer of best-selling women's novels, classified then as "plantation fiction", as well as writing numerous serial works, short stories, and essays for magazines.
The Enchanter is a novella written by Vladimir Nabokov in Paris in 1939. It was his last work of fiction written in Russian. Nabokov never published it during his lifetime. After his death, his son Dmitri translated the novella into English in 1986 and it was published the following year. Its original Russian version became available in 1991. The story deals with the hebephilia of the protagonist and thus is linked to and presages the Lolita theme.
The Deer Park is a Hollywood novel written by Norman Mailer and published in 1955 by G.P. Putnam's Sons after it was rejected by Mailer's publisher, Rinehart & Company, for obscenity. Despite having already typeset the book, Rinehart claimed that the manuscript's obscenity voided its contract with Mailer. Mailer retained his cousin, the attorney Charles Rembar, who became a noted defense attorney for publishers involved in censorship trials.
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to descriptions and depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity.
Lad: A Dog is a 1919 American novel written by Albert Payson Terhune and published by E. P. Dutton. Composed of twelve short stories first published in magazines, the novel is based on the life of Terhune's real-life Rough Collie, Lad. Born in 1902, the real-life Lad was an unregistered collie of unknown lineage originally owned by Terhune's father. Lad's death in 1918 was mourned by many of the story's fans, particularly children.
Further Adventures of Lad, also known as Dog Stories Every Child Should Know, is a 1922 American novel written by Albert Payson Terhune and published by George H. Doran. A follow-up to Lad: A Dog, it contains an additional eleven short stories featuring a fictional version of Terhune's real-life rough collie Lad, including the stories of Lad's initial arrival at the "Place", the death of his mate, and the day of his own death. Most of the stories were originally published in various magazines, and touch on themes of justice and the concepts of right and wrong. Terhune notes that he decided to publish the novel due to numerous letters received in response to the first novel, and the thousands of visitors who came to Sunnybank to visit the real-life Lad's grave. Though he initially intended for Further Adventures of Lad to be the final book of Lad stories, he would eventually publish one more book of stories, Lad of Sunnybank, in 1929.
The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice was an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public, founded in 1873. Its specific mission was to monitor compliance with state laws and work with the courts and district attorneys in bringing offenders to justice. It and its members also pushed for additional laws against perceived immoral conduct. While the NYSSV is better remembered for its opposition to literary works, it also closely monitored the newsstands, commonly found on city sidewalks and in transportation terminals, which sold the popular newspapers and periodicals of the day.
The obscenity trial over the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses in The Little Review, an American literary magazine, occurred in 1921 and effectively banned publication of Joyce's novel in the United States. After The Little Review published the "Nausicaa" episode of Ulysses in the April 1920 issue of the magazine, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice instigated obscenity charges against Little Review editors Margaret Caroline Anderson and Jane Heap. The editors were found guilty under laws associated with the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it illegal to send materials deemed obscene through the U.S. Mail. Anderson and Heap incurred a $100 fine, and were forced to cease publishing Ulysses in The Little Review.
Insects have found uses in art, as in other aspects of culture, both symbolically and physically, from ancient times. Artforms include the direct usage of beetlewing (elytra) in paintings, textiles, and jewellery, as well as the representation of insects in fine arts such as paintings and sculpture. Insects have sometimes formed characteristic features of artforms, as in Art Nouveau jewellery.
"About Love" is an 1898 short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The third and final part of the Little Trilogy, started by "The Man in the Case" and continued by "Gooseberries". It was first published in the August 1898 issue of Russkaya Mysl, and later included into Volume XII of the second, 1903 edition of the Collected Works by A.P. Chekhov, published by Adolf Marks.
