Daily Photo – Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Here’s a sudden swerve in direction for a Thursday morning (or whatever day and time it happens to be when you’re reading this).

The other day I spotted a wee snippet in the local paper marking 65 years since Penguin Books went on trial in London for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It caused a full-blown cultural storm in the 1960s because a publisher had dared to print a novel complete with sex scenes and swearing. The government, horrified, decided this simply wouldn’t do and charged them with obscenity. The prosecution, still clinging to Edwardian manners, good taste, and a solid dose of prudishness, asked the jury whether this was a book “you would wish your wife or your servants to read.” It showed just how spectacularly out of touch they were. When Penguin was found not guilty, it was a win for literature. It marked the point where Britain and much of the English-speaking world, began shaking off the moral stiffness of the 1950s. From then on, writers could explore feelings, emotions, and the messier bits of human love without being carted off to court or thrown in jail.

Looking back now, it’s hard not to smile at the irony. Imagine if the prosecution had got their hands on Fifty Shades of Grey- they’d have fainted before making it past page one. Not that I’ve read either mind you.