First published in 1992, Writing and Censorship in Britain explores the issue of censorship, from a range of cultural and literary perspectives, from the Tudor period to the 1990s. Written by some of the leading experts in the field, this collection charts the struggles for artistic expression, reveals how censorship is appropriated as a legitimate tactic in the defence of oppressed and marginalised groups, and analyses the struggles writers have employed in the face of its complex dynamics. Here variously defined, defended and deplored, censorship emerges as both an unstable and a potent concept. Through it we define ourselves: as readers, as writers and as citizens. This book will be of interest to students of literature, history and law.
Notes on the contributors Acknowledgements 1. Writing and censorship: an introduction Neil Sammells Chronology 2. Censorship and the 1587 ‘Holinshed’s’ Chronicles Annabel Patterson 3. ‘Those who else would turn all upside-down’: censorship and the assize sermon, 1660-1720 Barbara White 4. ‘All run now into Politicks’: theatre censorship during the Exclusion crisis, 1679-81 Janet Clare 5. Richard Steele: scandal and sedition Paul Hyland 6. John Gay: censoring the censors Calhoun Winton 7. ‘An old tragedy on a disgusting subject’: Horace Walpole and The Mysterious Mother Peter Sabor 8. ‘The memory of the liberty of the press’: the suppression of radical writing in the 1790s Alan Booth 9. A land of relative freedom: censorship of the press and the arts in the nineteenth century (1815-1914) Robert Justin Goldstein 10. Blasphemy, obscenity and the courts: contours of tolerance in nineteenth-century England M. J. D. Roberts 11. Victorian obscenity law: negative censorship or positive administration? David Saunders 12. ‘The physiological facts’: Thomas Hardy, censorship and narrative breakdown Richard Kerridge 13. Censorship ad the Great War: the first test of new statesmanship Adrian Smith 14. D. H. Lawrence: a suitable case for censorship Damian Grant 15. The treatment of homosexuality and The Well of Loneliness Katrina Rolley 16. Censorship and children’s literature: some post-war trends Peter Barry 17. Joyce, postculture and censorship Richard Brown Select bibliography Index
Biography
Paul Hyland and Neil Sammells
