[_23 Dec '09_]
The immediate origin of the new attempt by the libraries to exercise a
censorship over books, and particularly over novels, is quite accidental
and silly. A woman socially prominent in the governing classes of this
realm has a daughter. The daughter obtained and read a certain book from
the circulating library. (Naturally the family is one of those that are
too rich to buy books; it can only hire.) The mother chanced to see the
book, and considered it to be highly improper. (I have not read the book,
but I should say that it is probably not improper at all; merely a
trivial, foolish book.) The woman went direct to an extremely exalted
member of the Cabinet, being a friend of his; and she kicked up a
tremendous storm and dust. The result was that "certain machinery" was set
in motion, and "certain representations" were made to the libraries;
indeed, the libraries were given to understand that unless they did
something themselves "certain steps" would be taken. It was all very vague
and impressive, and it brought recent agitations to a head. Hence the
manifesto of the libraries, in which they announce that all books must be
submitted in advance to a committee of hiring experts, and that the
submitted books will be divided into three classes. The first class will
be absolutely banned; the circulation of the second will be prevented so
far as it can be prevented without the ban absolute; and the circulation
of the third will be permitted without restrictions.
* * * * *
Of course, that even the suggestion of a censorship should spring from
such a personal and trifling cause is very scandalous. But I am fairly
sure that it might happen under any Government and under any form of
Government. All Governments must consist of individual members, and all
individual members have friends. Most of them are acquainted with women,
and with absurd women, who will utilize the acquaintanceship with all
their might for their own personal ends. And exceedingly few members of
any Government whatsoever would have the courage to tell a well-dressed
and arrogant woman to go to the devil, even when that answer happened to
be the sole correct answer to an impertinence. Wellington merely damned
the portly darlings, but then Wellington, though preposterous as a
politician, was a great man.
* * * * *
The menacing letter from the Libraries was received by the Publishers on
the very day of their Council meeting. This may or may not have been
accidental, but at any rate it put the Publishers at a disadvantage. The
Council meetings of the Publishers' Association, being dominated by
knights and other mandarins, are apt to be formal and majestic in
character. You can't blurt out whatever comes into your head at a Council
meeting of the Publishers' Association. And nearly everybody is afraid of
everybody else. No one had had time to think the matter over, much less to
decide whether surrender or defiance would pay best or look best.
Consequently the reply sent to the Libraries was a masterpiece of
futility. The mildly surprising thing is that, in the Council itself,
there was a strong pro-Library party. Among this party were Messrs.
Hutchinson and Mr. Heinemann. Messrs. Hutchinson, it is well known, have
consistently for many years tried to publish only novels for "family
reading." It is an ambition, like another. And one may admit that Messrs.
Hutchinson have fairly well succeeded in it. Mr. Heinemann issues as much
really high-class literature as any publisher in London, but if his policy
has had a "family and young lady" tendency, that tendency has escaped me.
He has published books (some of them admirable works, and some not) which
a committee of hiring experts would have rejected with unanimous
enthusiasm. It is needless to particularize. Why Mr. Heinemann should have
supported the Libraries in the private deliberations of the Publishers I
cannot imagine. But that is the fault of my imagination. I have an immense
confidence in Mr. Heinemann's business acumen and instinct for
self-preservation.
* * * * *
The Publishers, if they chose, could kill the censorship movement at once
by politely declining to submit their books to the censorship. If only the
three big fiction firms concerted to do this, the Libraries would be
compelled to withdraw their project. But the Publishers will not do this;
not even three of them will do it. The only argument against a censorship
is that it is extremely harmful to original literature of permanent value;
and such an argument does not make any very powerful appeal to
publishers. What most publishers want is to earn as much money as
possible with as little fuss as possible. Again, the Authors' Society
might kill the censorship conspiracy by declining to allow its members to
sign any agreement with publishers which did not contain a clause
forbidding the publisher to submit the book to the committee of hiring
experts. A dozen leading novelists could command the situation. But the
Authors' Society will do nothing effective. The official reply of the
Authors' Society was as feeble as that of the Publishers. I repeat that
the only argument against a censorship is that it is extremely harmful to
original literature of permanent value; such an argument does not make any
very powerful appeal to authors. What most authors want is to earn as much
money as possible with as little fuss as possible. Besides, the great
money-makers among authors--the authors of weight with publishers and
libraries--have nothing to fear from any censorship. They censor
themselves. They take the most particular care not to write anything
original, courageous, or true, because these qualities alienate more
subscribers than they please. I am not a pessimist nor a cynic, but I
enjoy contemplating the real facts of a case.
All the forces would seem to be in favour of the establishment of a
censorship. (And by a censorship I mean such a censorship as would judge
books by a code which, if it was applied to them, would excommunicate the
Bible, Shakespeare, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Swift, Shelley,
Rossetti, Meredith, Hardy, and George Moore. "The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel" would never, as a new work, pass a library censorship. Nor would
"Jude the Obscure," nor half a dozen of Hardy's other books; nor would
most of George Moore.) Nevertheless I am not very much perturbed. There
are three tremendous forces against the establishment of a genuine
censorship, and I think that they will triumph. The first is that
mysterious nullifying force by which such movements usually do fizzle out.
The second force against it lies in the fact that the movement is not
genuinely based on public opinion. And the third is that there is a great
deal of money to be made out of merely silly mawkish books which a genuine
censorship would ban with serious, original work. For such books a strong
demand exists among people otherwise strictly respectable, far stronger
than the feeling against such books. The demand will have its way. A few
serious and obstinate authors will perhaps suffer for a while. But then we
often do suffer. We don't seem to mind. No one could guess, for instance,
from the sweet Christian kindliness of my general tone towards Mr. Jesse
Boot's library that Mr. Jesse Boot had been guilty of banning some of my
work which I love most. But it is so. I suppose we don't mind, because in
the end, dead or alive, we come out on top.
* * * * *
[_30 Dec. '09_]
I imagined that I had said the last word on this subject, and hence I
intended to say no more. But it appears that I was mistaken. It appears,
from a somewhat truculent letter which I have received from a
correspondent, that I have not yet even touched the fringe of the subject.
Parts of this correspondent's letter are fairly printable. He says: "You
look at the matter from quite the wrong point of view. There is only one
point of view, and that is the subscribers'. The Libraries don't exist for
authors, but for us (he is a subscriber to Mudie's). We pay, and the
Libraries are for our convenience. They are not for the furtherance of
English literature, or whatever you call it. What I say is, if I order a
book from a Library I ought to be able to get it, unless it has been
confiscated by the police. I didn't pay my subscription in order to have
my choice of books limited to such books as some frock-coated personage in
Oxford Street thought good for me. I've spent about forty years in
learning to know what I like in literature, and I don't want anybody to
teach me. I'm not a young girl, I'm a middle-aged man; but I don't see why
I should be handicapped by that. And if I am to be handicapped I'm going
to chuck Mudie's. I've already written them a very rude letter about Mr.
de Morgan's "It Never Can Happen Again." I wanted that book. They told me
they didn't supply it. And when I made a row they wrote me a soothing
letter nearly as long as the Epistle to the Ephesians explaining why they
didn't supply it. Something about two volumes and half a sovereign.... I
don't know, and I don't care. I don't care whether a book's in one volume
or in a hundred volumes. If I want it, and if I've paid for the right to
have it, I've got to have it, or I've got to have my money back. They
mumbled something in their letter about having received many complaints
from other subscribers about novels being in two volumes. But what do I
care about other subscribers?"
* * * * *
And he continues, after a deviation into forceful abuse: "I don't want to
force novels in two volumes down the throats of other subscribers. I don't
want to force anything down their throats. They aren't obliged to take
what they don't want. There are lots of books circulated by Mudie's that I
strongly object to--books that make me furious--as regards both moral and
physical heaviness and tediousness and general tommy-rot. But do I write
and complain, and ask Mudie's to withdraw such books altogether? If Mudie
came along with a pistol and two volumes by Hall Caine, and said to me,
'Look here, I'll make you have these,' then perhaps I might begin to
murmur gently. But he doesn't. I'll say this for Mudie; he doesn't force
you to take particular books. You can always leave what you don't want.
All these people who are (alleged to be) crying out for a
censorship--they're merely idle! If they really want a censorship they
ought to exercise it themselves. Robinson has a daughter, and he is
shocked at the idea of her picking up a silly sham-erotic novel by a
member of the aristocracy, or a first-rate beautiful thing by George
Moore.... Am I then to be deprived of the chance of studying the inane
psychology of the ruling classes or of enjoying the work of a great
artist? Be d----d to Robinson's daughter! I don't care a bilberry for
either her or her innocence. I'm not going to be responsible for
Robinson's daughter. Let Robinson, if he is such a fool as to suppose that
daughters can be spoiled by bad books or good books--let him look after
her himself! Let him establish his confounded censorship at his front
door, or at his drawing-room door. Let him do his own work. Nothing but
idleness--that's what's the matter with him! The whole project that
Robinson suggests is simply monstrous. He might just as well say that
because his daughter has a weak digestion and an unruly appetite for rich
cakes, therefore all the cake shops in London must be shut up. Let him
keep her out of cake shops. All I want is freedom. I don't mean to defend
my tastes or to apologize for them. If I wish to hire a certain book,
that's enough. I must have it--until the police step in. There can only be
one censorship, and that is by the police. A Library is a commercial
concern, and I won't look at it from any other point of view. I have no
interest at the present moment in your notions about the future of
literature, and the livelihood of serious artists, and so on. All that's
absolutely beside the point. The sole point is that I am ready to let
other people have what they want, and I claim that I've the right to have
what I want. The whole thing is simple rot, and there's no other word for
it."
1910