While people today and back then raise concerns over the wild content in Sade’s work, the connections aren’t hard to make when it comes to the censorship of literature. After its second publishing in 1956, there was a backlash saying that the company had committed an “offense against public decency.” The publisher ended up being convicted but was overturned on appeal because the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was then effect, and the case of R v. Penguin Books took place, changing the game of how publishers could release books like The 120 Days of Sodom to the public.
The Obscene Publications Act of 1959 covers how to determine if something is considered obscene, as well as defense of the public good, and search and seizure policies. They had decided that something was obscene if “a significant amount of persons read it and were likely to become corrupt”1. At that point, challengers of the book were worried Sade’s work would fall into that category and influence the public, and after the Moors Murder Trial of 1966, they were convinced. The Moors Murder Trial followed a couple that committed the brutal murder and sexual assault of five children, and one of the perpetrators had several works of Sade on his bookshelf. After the trial a ban on the publication and importation of the works was quickly put into effect.
After the publication stopped, several scholars and literary students came forward trying to prove that Sade’s work didn’t cause violence by words alone, more that it addressed the violence of human thought and nature. With the Libertines we see the case of monkey hear monkey do in the stories told by the women to them. Following the revival of publishing in the 90s, it was discovered that Sade’s work didn’t convert anyone into something they weren’t before they picked up the book.
- Participation, Expert. “Obscene Publications Act 1959.” Legislation.gov.uk. Statute Law Database, June 1, 1978. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/contents.
