''Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius'' is a book written by American lawyer,

Edward de Grazia Edward Richard de Grazia (February 5, 1927 – April 11, 2013) was an American lawyer, writer, and free speech activist.Douglas Martin(obituary), ''The New York Times'', April 24, 2013. De Grazia was born in Chicago. He served in the U.S. Army d ...

. It is a book chronicling the history of literary censorship in the United States and elsewhere.

The book details the history of struggles against literary censorship, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. As the narrative develops, it turns increasingly to US First Amendment law. It tells the stories of various censorship struggles and cases throughout the twentieth century. The book is dedicated to

Justice William Brennan William Joseph "Bill" Brennan Jr. (April 25, 1906 – July 24, 1997) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1956 to 1990. He was the seventh-longest serving justice ...

Henry Louis Gates Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Am ...

, "Book Review: To 'Deprave and Corrupt': ''Girls Lean Back Everywhere''", 38 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 401 (1993); ''The Nation'', v.254, 898 (1992). The title comes from

Jane Heap Jane Heap (November 1, 1883 – June 18, 1964) was an American publisher and a significant figure in the development and promotion of literary modernism. Together with Margaret Anderson, her friend and business partner (who for some years was al ...

, discussed in chapter one, which is based on the biographical writings of Heap and Margaret Anderson. Heap and Anderson were American feminists and publishers, who in 1918 published the "

Nausicaa Nausicaa (; grc, Ναυσικάα, Nausikáa, or , ) also spelled Nausicaä or Nausikaa, is a character in Homer's ''Odyssey''. She is the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia. Her name means "burner of ships" ( 'ship'; 'to b ...

" episode of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's ''

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

'' in their magazine, ''

The Little Review ''The Little Review'', an American literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson in Chicago's historic Fine Arts Building, published literary and art work from 1914 to May 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound, Anderson created a maga ...

''.

"Introduction"
''

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is the law school of Yeshiva University. Located in New York City and founded in 1976, the school is named for Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. Cardozo graduated its first class in 1979. An LL.M. p ...

'', v.9, pp. 387–391 (July 10, 1991). Their effort to publish the work was censored as the result of a criminal prosecution instigated by

John S. Sumner John Saxton Sumner (September 22, 1876 - June 20, 1971) headed the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), a New York state censorship body empowered to recommend obscenity cases to the appropriate prosecutors. He served as Associat ...

, Secretary of the

New York Society for the Suppression of Vice The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV or SSV) 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 di ...

. In response to Sumner, Heap wrote of

Mr. Joyce was not teaching early Egyptian perversions nor inventing new ones. Girls lean back everywhere, showing lace and silk stockings; wear low-cut sleeveless blouses, breathless bathing suits; men think thoughts and have emotions about these things everywhere—seldom as delicately and imaginatively as Mr. Bloom (in the "Nausicaa" episode)--and no one is corrupted.

Other chapters tell the stories of numerous publishers, authors, and works, including

Radclyffe Hall Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) was an English poet and author, best known for the novel ''The Well of Loneliness'', a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature. In adulthood, Hall often went by the name Jo ...

's ''

The Well of Loneliness ''The Well of Loneliness'' is a lesbian novel by British author Radclyffe Hall that was first published in 1928 by Jonathan Cape. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family whose " sexual inversion" (homo ...

;

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

's ''

Lady Chatterley's Lover ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929, in France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, w ...

'; ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humber ...

'' by

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

;

Theodore Dreiser Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...

and

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...

; and comedian

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

, as well as of censor boards and organizations, such as the Boston

Watch and Ward Society The New England Watch and Ward Society (founded as the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice) was a Boston, Massachusetts, organization involved in the censorship of books and the performing arts from the late 19th century to the middle ...

, the

National Vigilance Association The National Vigilance Association was a British society established in August 1885 "for the enforcement and improvement of the laws for the repression of criminal vice and public immorality".Rachael Attwood, "Stopping the Traffic: the National Vig ...

, and the Cincinnati

Citizens for Community Values Citizens for Community Values (CCV) is a lobbying organization focused upon implementing conservative Christian sexual morality in public policy. It operates primarily in the US state of Ohio and is the Family Policy Council (a Focus on the Fami ...

. The final chapter covers censorship in the 1980s of photographers

Andres Serrano Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is a red-tinged photograph of a ...

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

, and

Jock Sturges John Sturges (; born 1947), known as Jock Sturges, is an American photographer, best known for his images of nude Adolescence, adolescents and their families. Sturges pled guilty in 2021 at Franklin County (MA) Superior Court to an unnatural and ...

; musicians

2 Live Crew 2 Live Crew is an American hip hop music, hip hop group from Miami, Florida, which had its greatest commercial success from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. The group's most well-known line up was composed of Luther Campbell, Luke Campbell, Fr ...

; and performance artists

Karen Finley Karen Finley (born 1956) is an American performance artist, musician and poet. Her performance art, recordings, and books are used as forms of activism. Her work frequently uses nudity and profanity. Finley incorporates depictions of sexuality, ...

and Holly Hughes. The book is organized in the form of a court transcript, effectively "put

ing Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...

the arts vigilantes on trial."

Publication history

The first two chapters of the book were published serially in the ''

''.

Significant reviews and reception

The book has been described as "monumental", "authoritative",Matt Schudel
"Edward de Grazia, lawyer and free-speech advocate, dies at 86"
(obituary), ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', April 20, 2013 and "inspired", although sometimes "bloat d... with facts irrelevant to censorship." ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'' described the book as a "remarkable tour de force of literary/legal sleuthing".Review
''

'', March 1, 1993.
''Kirkus Reviews''
November 15, 1991 * Jacqueline Adams, ''Library Journal'', February 1, 1992, v.117, n.2, p. 111 ("comprehensive but very readable and thought-provoking") * Frederick Bush, "Under Attack: ''Girls Lean Back Everywhere'' ...", ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', March 22, 1993. * Cait Clarke, ''Loyola Law Review'', Summer 1992, v.38, pp. 541–556. *

, "Book Review: To 'Deprave and Corrupt': ''Girls Lean Back Everywhere''", 38 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 401 (1993); ''The Nation'', v.254, 898 (1992). * Yifat Hachamovitch, ''Cardozo Studies in Law & Literature'', Fall 1992, v. 4, pp. 289–304. *

Marjorie Heins Marjorie Heins (b.1946) is a First Amendment lawyer, writer and founder of the Free Expression Policy Project.Beth Saulnier"The Talking Cure" ''Cornell Alumni Magazine'', Sept./Oct. 2013. Education Heins received a B.A., with distinction, from Co ...

, "Book Review: ''Girls Lean Back Everywhere''", 1992 ''NYU Review of Law & Social Change'' 933–942. *

Richard H. Pildes Richard H. Pildes is the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at the New York University School of Law and a leading expert on constitutional law, the Supreme Court, the system of government in the United States, and legal issues concern ...

, "An Absolute Faith: Review of ''Girls Lean Back Everywhere''", ''

New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', July 26, 1992.
''Publishers Weekly''
March 2, 1992 ("a remarkable tour de force") * Sara Suleri, ''Yale Review'', April 1992, v.80, p. 197. * Kathleen M. Sullivan, ''New Republic'', September 28, 1992, v.207, p. 35. * John Sutherland, ''TLS'', June 26, 1992, # 4656, p. 11.* Ronald K. L. Collins, ''Christian Science Monitor'', April 6, 1992, p. 13. * Norma Basch, ''American Historical Review'', April 1993, v.98, p. 598. * Anne E. Gilson, ''Michigan Law Review'', May 1993, v.91, pp. 1166–1171. * Linda Kauffman, ''Arts & Entertainment Law Journal'', 1993, v.11, pp. 765–775. * Alma Robinson, ''San Francisco Review of Books'', Jan./Feb. 1993, v.18, p. 22. * Robert M. O'Neil, ''Cardozo Law Review'', April 1994, v.15, pp. 2329–2335. *

Catherine A. MacKinnon Catharine Alice MacKinnon (born October 7, 1946) is an American radical feminist legal scholar, activist, and author. She is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she has been tenured since 1990, a ...

, ''Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review'', Winter 1995, v.30, pp. 143–168. * Peter E. Kane, ''Free Speech Yearbook'', 1996, v.34, pp. 192–194. *

, "Pornography Left and Right" (review of ''Sex and Reason'' by

Richard A. Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicago ...

and ''Girls Lean Back Everywhere'') in David M. Estlund and

Martha Nussbaum Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...

, eds., ''Sex, Preference, and Family: Essays on Law and Nature'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 102–125.

References

{{reflist 1991 non-fiction books Books about legal history Books about United States legal history Works about freedom of expression Books about freedom of speech Works about censorship

Contents

Publication history

Significant reviews and reception

References