Pornography and Obscenity’ to Nancy Pearn for Typing
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PORNOGRAPHY AND OBSCENITY It is c lear from a letter of Apri l , written in Ma ll orca, that Lawrence had been invited to contribute an artic le to This Quarter, a new magazine soon to be launched in Paris by Edward Titus who, in the fo ll owing month, wou ld pub lish an ‘Unabridged Popu lar Edition’ of Lady Chatterley’s Lover . The Lawrences had arrived in Ma ll orca on ly on Apri l, having left Paris on the th. Lawrence himse lf was exhausted from his four-wee k stay in Paris: he had been negotiating with Titus over Lady Chatterley’s Lover , with the Crosbys over their edition of The Escaped Cock , with A lbert Boni about his American pub lications and, in addition, satisfying the diverse socia l demands placed on a ce lebrated writer in the French capita l. From Paris he and Frieda made their way to Ma ll orca via Or leans,´ Lyons, Carcassonne, Perpignan and Barce lona. So, writing to Titus on Apri l, Lawrence cou ld reasonab ly p lead that he was ‘too unsett led for the moment’ ( Letters, vii. ) but wou ld not forget Titus’s invitation. Nor did he. Ten days later he sent the manuscript of ‘Pornography and Obscenity’ to Nancy Pearn for typing. He a lso agreed to Titus’s re quest that the artic le was not to be offered for publication by ‘anybody e lse, either in Eng land or America’ (vii. ). Lawrence knew that Titus wou ld not ‘be ab le to pay much’ (vii. ) but he regarded the artic le as a friend ly gesture in return for Titus’s wi ll ingness to bring out the Paris edition of ‘Our Lady’. The artic le (of about , words) du ly appeared in This Quarter, in the issue covering July–September . Titus had not been slow to recognise Lawrence’s notoriety fo ll owing po lice action over Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Pansies typescripts, in January , and the conse quent Par liamentary debate on February about the censorship of documents regarded by officia ldom as ‘obscene’. When to these events were added the po lice raid on the Warren Ga ll ery and the confiscation of some Lawrence paintings in July, he became – from a pub lisher’s viewpoint – irresistib le as a person to give vent to his feelings on censorship. Faber & Faber seized the opportunity. In late August or ear ly September they invited Lawrence to write on the subject for their Criterion Miscellany; un known to him, they a lso invited the Late Essays and Articles Home Secretary responsible for the po lice actions in January, Joynson Hicks (now Viscount Brentford), to write on the same topic. As E. M. Forster was later to remar k: ‘It was a happy and indeed a witty thought of the pub lishers to induce the most remar kab le of our nove lists and our most notorious Home Secretary to write pamph lets on the sub- ject of indecency.’ When the Faber invitation arrived, Lawrence hesi- tated; he to ld Laurence Po ll inger at Curtis Brown’s literary agency on September: I don’t know if I’ ll do the Faber artic le – what’s the good! I’m sic k to death of the British Public, a ll publishers, and a ll magazines – and fee l I never want to see a word of mine in pub lic print again. But I’ ll read the ‘Obscenity’ artic le [written for Titus] over, and if it interests me in itse lf, I’ ll l engthen it. Random House might publish it as a pamph let. As for Faber & Faber – I shou ld get about £ – out of them and a batch of insu lts – What’s the point! But I’ ll l et you know fina ll y about this, this wee k. (vii. –) A mere three days later he wrote again to Po ll inger: Here is the conc lusion of the artic le on Obscenity and Pornogra phy . It now ma kes about ten thousand words. You can give it to Faber & Faber if you like, for their month ly criterion and their rather si ll y little shi ll ing books. They are a lmost sure to reject it: which wi ll be perhaps just as we ll . If they accept, they may leave out sma ll bits, if they want to, but they must te ll me first. (vii. –) Somewhat to Lawrence’s surprise, Fabers were prepared to ‘ris k the obscenity artic le’ so long as he omitted the a ll egation that ‘the boo ks of Sir James Barrie and Mr Ga lsworthy . are far more pornographica l than the live liest story in the Decameron: because they tic kl e and excite to private masturbation, which the who lesome Boccaccio never does’ (vii. and n. ). Lawrence agreed to the de letion as he to ld Po ll inger on September and again on October. Matters then moved swift ly. Lawrence returned the signed contract to Po ll inger on October; he had read proofs by November; and the paperback edition of Pornogra phy and Obscenity , No. of Criterion Mis- cellany, was pub lished on the th (vii. , ). Seeming ly a review had appeared by the th; it has not been identified but it was sufficient ly hostile to provo ke Lawrence’s remar k to Po ll inger: ‘I’m glad Obscenity is biting through their s kin, as I intended it shou ld. Mr Lawrence not Nation and Athenaeum, January , x lvi. . Quoted in Draper . See : –:. (Unfortunate ly the re levant fi le at Faber & Faber has not survived.) Textua l co ll ation suggests that other changes were introduced without DHL’s know l- edge: see, for examp le, : , :, : – . Pornography and Obscenity on ly be lieves what he says, he knows it’s true’ (vii. ). Simi lar ly,whi le assuring Titus that the pamph let had not provo ked officia l displeasure in Eng land, he was obvious ly p leased to report that ‘the peop le hate it’ (vii. ). This view reappears in a letter to his e lder sister, Emi ly King, who wou ld receive a comp limentary copy – ‘Stirs them up a bit. That Jix [ Joynson Hic ks] is a mea ly-mouthed worm’ – a sentiment repeated to Po ll inger also on November: ‘what a mea ly-mouthed maggot that Jix is!’ (vii. , and n. ). The exp lanation for these outbursts against ‘ Jix’ lies in his artic le in Everyman on November, entit led ‘HOW THE CENSORSHIP WORKS’, justifying his arguments in his own Faber pamph let, Do We Need a Censor? He expressed satisfaction with the reception of the pamph let except from ‘a certain section of the community who prefer to put liberty before decency’. He went on to question what ‘the average father of a fami ly wou ld say if he found his daughter reading Mr D. H. Lawrence’s latest pamph let on pornogra- phy’; he a ll uded to ‘an exhibition of pictures . which it was a ll eged were indecent . and the exhibition was c losed’; and he reca ll ed how ‘two poems by a we ll -known man were caught in the post, quite acci- dentall y – not under the Home Secretary’s warrant, but simp ly on the haphazard opening by the Customs authorities of a parce l to see whether it contained anything contraband. It was found to contain a most perni- cious poem.’ The opening of the Home Office fi le in on Lawrence’s Pansies revea ls the extent to which Jix was economica l with the truth. Lawrence was overjoyed with the sa les of his pamph let: ‘ a wee k’, he to ld his Ita lian friend and publisher, ‘Pino’ Orio li; ‘over , – more than any of the others’, Charles Lahr was to ld on the same day, December (vii. –). And in ‘the others’ he inc luded H. G. We ll s’s Imperialism and the Open Cons piracy – No. in the Criterion Miscellany – as we ll as No. , Jix’s Do We Need a Censor? , both pub lished, along with Lawrence’s pamph let, in November . Faber & Faber issued a hardbac k edition in January ; the first American edition was pub lished by A lfred Knopf in New Yor k on February ; and the first co ll ected edition came from Faber & Faber – Pornogra phy and So On on September (a month before the essay was inc luded in Phoenix). The text in a ll these cases was expur- gated as Faber & Faber had re quested; the unexpurgated text printed here fo ll ows the manuscript of the expanded version. See James T. Bou lton, ‘D. H. Lawrence’s Pansies and the State, ’, Journal of the D. H. Lawrence Society, ed. Bethan Jones (Eastwood, Autumn ), pp. – . PORNOGRAPHY AND OBSCENITY What they are depends, as usua l, entire ly on the individua l. What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another. The word itse lf, we are to ld, means “pertaining to har lots”—the graph of the har lot.* But nowadays, what is a har lot? If she was a woman who took money from a man in return for going to bed with him— reall y, most wives so ld themse lves, in the past, and p lenty of har lots gave themse lves, when they fe lt like it, for nothing. If a woman hasn’t got a tiny strea k of a har lot in her, she’s a dry stic k as a ru le.