Censorship

Sunday, January 24th., Rue de Grenelle, Paris.

Attempts at censorship in England have been annoying me for some time and I have been waging a small campaign of my own, against censorship, in the New Age. Now the English Review have asked me to do an article on the subject for them. I said I would. To that end I wrote to John Lane because I understood that he had had trouble in connection with publication of "The Song of Songs" and "The New Machiavelli". I have now had his reply.

As I suspected, Lane tells me that Scotland Yard informed him of a complaint alleging obscenity in "the Song of Songs" as translated by Sudermann. I should like to know who inspired the police, not believing that Scotland Yard, in the intervals of its preoccupation with the Sidney Street brigands, had found time to make a study of current fiction in the interests of London morals. No doubt it is some self-appointed moral guardian, probably a fundamentalist Christian; they are the worst in my experience.

Lane has written to several authors to get a view about the alleged obscenity of the work. For myself I read it carefully and could see nothing to censure on grounds of obscenity, though much on grounds of aesthetics. Eden Phillpotts hit the nail on the head by saying that "the only things obscene therein were the Americanisms". Thomas Hardy apparently thought the book should be withdrawn because the translation is so poor. I agree entirely.

As regards "The New Machiavelli", I think it magnificent and in no way obscene. Conrad has called it "a master work". I have seen a review by Hubert Bland in the Daily Chronicle which describes it as "clever, but unpleasant and smug". The fact that they commissioned Bland to write the review shows that they had a preconceived antipathy to the book. Where is the Society of Authors in all this? Keeping quiet, that's where. If the Society of Authors and the Publishers' Association got together they could, in my view, kill library censorship very easily, but neither group seem willing. It seems to me that they are more by way of dining clubs than active literary organisations.

"Hilda" is progressing well. Over 16,000 words in three weeks. Good words too!