So, I've been doing a little work on James Branch Cabell lately, which included reading up a bit on The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, the group who tried to get Cabell's book JURGEN banned. The attempt backfired, generating a mountain of publicity in the book's favor and boosting Cabell's career.
All this I had known, but I had not known that the group (boosted, at least early on, by the YMCA) lasted some seventy-five years, and that among its targets were Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Sanger, Mae West, James Joyce, and Edmund Wilson (I suspect in fact that Wilson's interest in Cabell originated from their sharing this in common).
I had also not seen the Society's seal (reproduced above) before. I'll give them credit for one thing: unlike many censors they make no secret of their goals. On the left side of the seal we see a figure (presumably a book seller, printer, or publisher), hands tided behind his back, being arrested by a uniformed police officer. On the right we see a book-burning, as a stern figure tosses more volumes into the flames.
Brrr.
--John R.
--current reading: JURGEN by James Branch Cabell (1919)
--current music: The Kinks (favorite selections)
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