Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940 Book

A pretty good look at a time not that long ago when American culture was dominated by a cabal of conservatives, Catholics, and prudes who couldn't see the difference between Ulysses and a Tijuana Bible. Centered around the book trade, mostly in New York City, Chicago, and Boston, Gertzman's analysis of bookburning fervor focuses mostly on two men -- John Sumner, heir to the Comstock throne of postal suppression -- and Samuel Roth -- a complex litterateur and smutmonger, hated equally by bluenoses and the intelligentsia. I thought the book relied too much on official records, which make dry reading, and insufficiently on memoirs and contemporary newspaper accounts (there is a newspaper page among the illustrations that provides some of the liveliest prose in the book), but for the most part, this is a fine account of America trying to work out exactly what freedom of speech means, while chained in the bonds of well-meaning zealots.