Review: A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls by Adam Morgan

Synopsis: The definitive biography of overlooked queer icon Margaret C. Anderson, whose fight to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses led to her arrest and trial for obscenity. Perfect for fans of The Editor and The Book-Makers.

Already under fire for publishing the literary avant-garde into a world not ready for it, Margaret C. Anderson’s cutting-edge magazine The Little Review was a bastion of progressive politics and boundary-pushing writing from then-unknowns like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, and Djuna Barnes. And as its publisher, Anderson was a target. From Chicago to New York and Paris, this fearless agitator helmed a woman-led publication that pushed American culture forward and challenged the sensibilities of early 20th century Americans dismayed by its salacious writing and advocacy for supposed extremism like women’s suffrage, access to birth control, and LBGTQ rights.

But then it went too far. In 1921, Anderson found herself on trial and labeled “a danger to the minds of young girls” by a government seeking to shut her down. Guilty of having serialized James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses in her magazine, Anderson was now not just a publisher but also a scapegoat for regressives seeking to impose their will on a world on the brink of modernization.

Author, journalist, and literary critic Adam Morgan brings Anderson and her journal to life anew in A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls, capturing a moment of cultural acceleration and backlash all too familiar today while shining light on an unsung heroine of American arts and letters. Bringing a fresh eye to a woman and a movement misunderstood in their time, this biography highlights a feminist counterculture that audaciously pushed for more during a time of extreme social conservatism and changed the face of American literature and culture forever.

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It is a decent rather than definitive biography of a woman, who happened to be a lesbian, who ran her own publishing company, who employ other women, and who took on the "established" publishing world by serialising Joyce's "Ulyssses" much to the chagrin of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. It would be for this alone, that Margaret would be demonised and arrested for obscenity - resulting in her standing trial in 1921 with co-publisher, Jane Heap.

Morgan's book takes us through Margaret's earlier life - childhood, her self-emancipation from her parents, her work in non-traditional roles, including reviewing books, before establishing her own publishing company - and all the trials and errors associated with each decision and action. 

Then the obscenity trial is covered - rather too briefly for my liking - before we travel with Margaret out of the USA and onto Continental Europe where her life is a little sketchy at best. Powering through the 1930s in rather jumbled narrative - quite possibly due to the number of people introduced and the required explanations as to their associations / connections  - we jump to the final years of Margaret's life.

For a woman at the forefront of a major publishing controversy, I felt this fell a little flat. Whether this was due to a lack of sources or access to sources, I cannot tell but I was looking for slightly more than a wikipedia entry, especially with regards to the trial component.  

Look, overall, it is a great introduction to a woman whose lasting legacy was the promotion of "serious literature" in an era and to a society marked by conservative moral and literary tastes.

Publishers stand firm on Roald Dahl rewrite row

Article from The Telegraph:

European publishers have joined a backlash against changing Roald Dahl’s books, saying his stories “lose all their power” if his language is watered down

The author’s Dutch publisher Joris van de Leur criticised the decision by Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company to make hundreds of changes after consulting sensitivity readers and said he may stick with the original text.

The word “fat” has been removed from the books, including its use in reference to Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

But Mr van de Leur said of Dahl’s writing: “Exaggerations are a figure of speech with him: if a person is fat, it represents gluttony and excess. Children understand what such literary hyperbole is. They really don’t think all fat kids are greedy.”

He said that De Fontein, the publishing company of which he is director, could continue to publish the old versions.

Old copies of Roald Dahl’s books have become sought-after following the news that new editions replace the original text.

World of Books, the online seller, said sales of Dahl’s books have risen by 600 per cent in the past week.

Nick Poole, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, said that libraries should try to stock the original editions along with the new to allow readers to “judge for themselves which they prefer”.

Mr Poole said that to give readers a choice, it was essential that publishers who edit classic works clearly label new editions, saying: “We are dependent on publishers to identify that this has been done, for example by marking it as a ‘revised’ edition.”

He added: “We are committed to opposing censorship unless there is a specific risk that providing access to a particular book will break the law or incite hatred or violence. We recognise that publishers do regularly revisit the text of new editions to reflect changing values. It is important for them to let the reader know that the text has been altered from the original.”

Read article in its entirety here at The Telegraph

See also more on this from:

• The Telegraph
• The Guardian
• The Atlantic
• The Age
• The Conversation
• The New York Times
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Time
• CNN
• Daily Mail

Sticky Fingers describes Rolling Stone founder's dirty deeds

From Financial Review:

Sticky Fingers is an exhaustively researched, remarkably candid biography of Jann Wenner, who 50 years ago started the world's first newspaper to take rock'n'roll seriously, and last month sold most of his family's remaining stake for $US50 million.

This could also be the most honest business book published in 2017, for Wenner succeeded despite doing many of the things an MBA teaches you not to.

A long-form journalist whose list of credits includes Rolling Stone, Hagan was Wenner's choice as biographer and thus gained access to his archives and his peerless network – Dylan, Jagger, McCartney, Midler, Richards, Springsteen, Townshend and Wenner himself all go on record.

However, Hagan made sure Wenner did not play the old Rolling Stone game, refusing him final copy approval and allowing the multiple character assassinations and sordid 1970s stories contained herein to see the light of day.

Hagan and Wenner have fallen out since Sticky Fingers was published in November. An authorised biography needs no greater recommendation.

How real books have trumped ebooks

The title says it all - the popularity of the e-book has slowly diminished since 2014 and the physical book has made a resurgence.  I, myself, have always favoured the physical book - whether hardback, paperback, softcover - over the e-book. I just find them more user-friendly.  I don't have an e-reader, I use my laptop - so for me, holding the book in my hand is more convenient and more conducive to reading.

Here's what Alex Preston has to say on the issue in the Guardian:

Books have always had a fetishistic quality to them, with their dusty secretiveness. Now, though, it feels like we’re living through a special moment in the history of book design and beautiful books are everywhere.

The latest figures from the Publishing Association showed ebook sales falling 17% in 2016, with an 8% rise in their physical counterparts. At the same time, publishers’ production values have soared and bookshops have begun to fill up with books with covers of jewel-like beauty, often with gorgeously textured pages.

Whether the physical book goes the way of the hand-illuminated manuscript, an object of merely historical interest for all its beauty, or whether this ancient piece of technology is here to stay, we should all be celebrating the work of the designers and publishers who have responded to the gauntlet thrown down by ebooks with such aplomb.

We should also recognise that the most beautiful books of the last few years have also been some of the most brilliant and inspired. The care and attention lavished on those intricately illuminated medieval volumes said something important about what was written inside them, the value of the words within, and this is no less true today.

read entire article here @ the Guardian

Rare Caxton Print Found

Pages printed more than 500 years ago by William Caxton, who brought printing to England, have been discovered by the University of Reading.

There are no other known surviving examples of these two pages anywhere in the world, from a book believed to have been printed in London in the 1470s.

The pages had been "under their noses" unrecognised in the library's archives.

Erika Delbecque, special collections librarian at the university, described the find as "incredibly rare".

The two pages, with religious texts in medieval Latin, were produced by Caxton at his pioneering printing works in Westminster - and are now going on public display for the first time since they were sold from his print shop in the 15th Century.

According to The Independent, librarians at the University of Reading recently found two pages from a priest’s handbook called Sarum Ordinal or Sarum Pye, which had been pasted inside of another book to reinforce its spine. A librarian working to restore that book noticed and pulled out the pages from the priest’s handbook; they date to between 1476 and 1477.

Read more here @ BBC News and @ Atlas Obscura

7 Books That Will (Probably) Never Be Printed Again

7 Books That Will (Probably) Never Be Printed Again | Mental Floss

In an age where readers can get their book fix via downloads or overnight shipping, it can be easy to overlook the fact that not everything is available on demand. Thousands of titles remain off-limits in both digital and analog form for a variety of reasons—some controversial, others due to the author's wishes. Take a look at seven titles you’re unlikely to find on shelves anytime soon.