Lady chatterley trial 1960

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Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more. Please enter an email. Please enter a valid email address. Thank you for signing up to the Penguin Newsletter Keep an eye out in your inbox. Subscription failed, please try again. The prosecution played a minor role, calling only one witness and sometimes putting no questions to those who appeared for the defence.

In the end, after three hours of deliberation, the jury of three women and nine men returned a unanimous verdict. Penguin was acquitted. Which brings us back to Lady Chatterley and, in particular, the book in the fabric bag. Copies of the unexpurgated novel were circulating before , meaning some of those involved in the case had long been familiar with it — the first defence witness had read it in about The lawyers had taken great pains to study the text in preparing for the trial.

The jury were given copies in court, just before the trial began. At the end of the first day, the judge adjourned the case, directing them to read the book but forbidding them from taking it home. In his cross-examination Griffith-Jones pressed Robinson on the novel as a 'valuable work on ethics' and made the first of several sharp, and ultimately counter-productive, rebukes to witnesses whom he accused of indulging in lectures rather than answering his questions.

The bishop's testimony concluded with further questions from Gardiner , prompting Robinson's controversial assertion that the novel was one that 'Christians ought to read'—a statement that gained widespread media coverage ibid.

The first day of defence testimonies concluded with Richard Hoggart , a 'self-composed, determined and unshakeable witness', with whom, it was generally agreed, the case moved in favour of the defence Rolph , Like those before him Hoggart denied that the novel's sex scenes were excessive or gratuitous.

He also offered the firmest statement yet of the novel's literary merit, identifying it as one of the best twenty books published since Recalled on 28 October, Hoggart addressed the subject of the novel's language, which he acknowledged had initially been shocking— Lawrence's words being those that 'don't go into polite literature normally'—but argued that their use was justified, given the absence of alternatives and their diminishing impact as the novel progressed ibid.

In his cross-examination Griffith-Jones sought, unsuccessfully, to belittle Hoggart , first mocking his claim that the novel be considered 'puritanical' and then asking that the court be spared another lecture: 'You are not at Leicester University at the moment' ibid. Hoggart refused to respond in kind and was praised by observers for his sincerity and thoughtfulness while Griffith-Jones's tendency towards high-handedness was further exposed. Hoggart's arguments were reiterated by subsequent witnesses, including E.

Forster , Roy Jenkins , and Norman St John-Stevas , who each addressed Lawrence's ability as a writer and his novel's literary and moral qualities. Speaking on Monday 31 October, St John-Stevas , a practising Roman Catholic, also described the book as 'consistent with my own faith' and one 'every Catholic priest and every Catholic would profit by reading' Rolph , Later in the day Penguin's founder, Allen Lane , took the stand.

Replying to questions from Jeremy Hutchinson , Lane explained the aims of his company 'a University Press in paper backs' and his reasons for publishing an unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley , highlighting its importance for a complete series of Lawrence's works, the company's policy of not producing edited versions, and the opportunity presented by the legislation of ibid. Penguin's contribution to British cultural life was subsequently endorsed by Lane's fellow publisher Stanley Unwin , who was followed by Dilys Powell , who argued for the superiority of Lawrence's depictions of sex when compared with many of those in contemporary cinema, and by C.

Day Lewis , who defended Connie Chatterley against the prosecution's charge of immorality. The potentially damaging effects of her and Mellors's conduct on the young was in turn dismissed by the educationist Donald Tytler , who claimed that the novel was an important corrective to an increasingly common view that sex was 'unimportant' and hence promiscuity 'the normal course' ibid.

The final word went to one such young reader, Bernadine Wall , who began by describing the obvious shortcomings of the novel in its censored form. Asked what she had made of Lawrence's language in the unexpurgated version, she replied that his choice of words contained no surprises as 'I knew all of them at that time' ibid.

Closing speeches for the defence and prosecution were made on 1 November. Gerald Gardiner claimed that the prosecution's argument had been overwhelmed by the calibre and consistency of the defence witnesses; he also instructed jurors that they were not judging a pornographic bookseller but a highly regarded publisher whose directors clearly did not consider the novel obscene.

In response Mervyn Griffith-Jones stated, somewhat duplicitously, that he had been unable to call witnesses as, according to the legislation of , experts were restricted to commenting on the artistic merits of a work—something that was not under investigation in this case.

He went on to question whether the opinions of university lecturers and writers were those of the 'ordinary common men and women' who would read Penguin's cheap paperback edition, and reiterated that the novel contained depictions of sexual activity of the kind that could only be found 'some way in the Charing Cross Road, the back streets of Paris and even Port Said' Rolph , Summing up, Mr Justice Byrne instructed jurors of the need to decide whether, in its unexpurgated form, the novel was 'beyond reasonable doubt … obscene' and thus likely to deprave and corrupt.

In doing so the jury was not expected to consider themselves a 'board of censors' but to behave as 'men and women of the world—not with prudish minds but with liberal minds' ibid. On Wednesday 2 November, after three hours' deliberation, the jurors returned a verdict of not guilty, so opening the way for the legal distribution of a novel no longer deemed obscene under the act of Initially the ruling applied only to England and Wales, though it was later extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

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