Roy Jenkins’s Obscene Publications Act, passed nearly four years ago, is about to face the two biggest tests of its usefulness since the Lady Chatterley trial in November, 1960. Allen and Unwin are to publish on Thursday a translation of the Indian erotic classic, The Kama Sutra, and on March 28 John Calder will bring out, for the first time in Britain, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.
Both publishers say they would not have risked these ventures before the Jenkins Act. They are both reasonably confident, having taken legal advice, that they will not be prosecuted. The Act protects works of genuine literary or academic interest against charges of obscenity, and obliges a dubious passage to be considered in the context of the work. Most publishers agree that it, and the Chatterley acquittal, have made it more feasible to print serious books of this nature. But such books are rare: these two will be almost the first of real importance since Penguin’s Chatterley. The Kama Sutra… is a manual of advice on courtship, seduction and love-making. It goes into full physical detail, in a curious, poetic way. It also throws light on Indian life of the period; the publishers claim that this is one main reason why they are issuing it, another reason being the literary quality of the translation by Richard Burton… They are pricing it high - 42s - partly to keep away from the “dirty book” trade.
John Ardagh
Talking point
Enough parathion – an extremely toxic insecticide - is sprayed on Californian farms each year to kill five times the population of the world. This is one of the many disturbing facts quoted in Silent Spring, a book about the hazards of pesticides, by Rachel Carson, the American biologist, which was published in Britain last week.
Key quote
During the war it took us a matter of months to train a Spitfire pilot. I decline to believe that it takes five years to train a bricklayer.
Lord Hailsham