2012 February 21

Censorship Foe Barney Rosset Dies

 

Once described by his critics as “The Most Dangerous Man in Publishing,” Barney Rosset, the owner of Grove Press, died on this day.

Rosset challenged the censorship of books in a number of important cases. In his two most famous cases, he successfully ended censorship of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer (see June 22, 1964). As a publisher he championed Beat poets, French Surrealists, German Expressionists and dramatists of the absurd, as well as masters such as Samuel Beckett. Under his Grove Press imprint, Rosset also published such authors as Che Guevara and Malcolm X.

Read Rosset’s autobiography: Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship (2016)

Learn more about Barney Rosset’s life and career here

Watch a short documentary on Rossethttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsBB0Fxdjn0

Learn more about the campaign against censorship: Charles Rembar, The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterley, Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill (1968)

Watch an interview with Rosset: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdweTspU_7A

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