Q 01/05

Which 1933 US court ruling by Judge John Woolsey cleared James Joyce's most famous novel of obscenity?

A) Roth v. United States (1957)

B) Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966)

C) United States v. One Book Called Ulysses

D) Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964)

Answer · why

C) United States v. One Book Called Ulysses

The Second Circuit affirmed 2-1 that offensive language in serious literature is not obscene unless it promotes lust; the UK ban lasted until 1936.

Q 02/05

Ulysses drew a New York obscenity prosecution while being serialised in which magazine?

A) The Dial magazine

B) The Egoist magazine

C) The Little Review

D) Poetry magazine

Answer · why

C) The Little Review

Because the magazine could be bought in a New York bookshop, the district attorney was able to prosecute its sellers.

Q 03/05

Penguin Books was prosecuted at the Old Bailey in 1960 for publishing which novel?

A) Lolita by Nabokov

B) Tropic of Cancer

C) Lady Chatterley's Lover

D) Ulysses by Joyce

Answer · why

C) Lady Chatterley's Lover

The jury acquitted after a six-day trial under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, a result often called the start of Britain's permissive society.

Q 04/05

Who prosecuted the Lady Chatterley trial, asking jurors if they'd let their wife or servants read it?

A) Gerald Gardiner

B) Laurence Byrne

C) Mervyn Griffith-Jones

D) Roy Jenkins

Answer · why

C) Mervyn Griffith-Jones

Gerald Gardiner defended and Laurence Byrne presided; Roy Jenkins had written to The Spectator calling the prosecution a misapplication of the law.

Q 05/05

Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie on which date?

A) 11 September 1988

B) 1 January 1989

C) 14 February 1989

D) 4 July 1990

Answer · why

C) 14 February 1989

A month earlier, protesters in Bradford, England, had publicly burned copies of The Satanic Verses.