Lady Chatterley on trial: the 1960 case that changed British publishing

What is Lady Chatterley's Lover about?

Lady Chatterley's Lover is D. H. Lawrence's last novel, the story of a married woman who begins a relationship with her husband's gamekeeper and finds in it a sense of wholeness that her marriage lacks ^[6]. Constance Chatterley is married to Sir Clifford, a baronet paralysed from the waist down by a war injury. She starts an affair with Oliver Mellors, the estate's gamekeeper, and the relationship deepens into something serious ^[6]. The novel ends with Connie pregnant and Clifford unwilling to divorce her ^[6].

Lawrence's central claim is that love needs both mind and body, and that modern industrial society starves both. The critic Richard Hoggart, who later testified at the trial, argued that the real subject is the search for integrity, with the mind and body united ^[6]. The gap of class between Connie and Mellors is a second major theme, and Mellors's use of local dialect underlines it ^[6].

For this site, the interest is that the book places a sexual relationship outside marriage at the centre of a serious novel and presents it with sympathy. Adultery itself had long been a staple of English fiction, but Lawrence described the scenes with a frankness that British publishers had avoided. That frankness, not the adultery as such, was the legal problem.

The publication history explains why the 1960 case was so significant. Lawrence had 2,000 copies privately printed in Florence in 1928 with the help of the bookseller Pino Orioli, and a second private edition of 200 followed later that year ^[6]. He died in 1930. In 1932 Martin Secker published an authorised British edition with passages omitted, and Knopf issued a heavily censored American version ^[6]. For three decades the complete text was therefore hard to obtain legally in Britain.

Timeline

1. 1928Lawrence has 2,000 copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover printed privately in Florence; he dies in 1930 [6].
2. 1932Martin Secker publishes an authorised British edition with passages omitted [6].
3. 29 Jul 1959The Obscene Publications Act 1959, introduced through the Labour MP Roy Jenkins, receives Royal Assent; it replaces the common-law Hicklin approach and adds a public good defence, for England and Wales only [1][3][8][14].
4. Aug 1960Penguin hands copies of its unexpurgated edition to the police and is summoned; sources date the summons variously 16, 19 and 25 August [5][12][13].
5. 20 Oct 1960The trial opens before Mr Justice Byrne at the Old Bailey, with Mervyn Griffith-Jones for the Crown and Gerald Gardiner for Penguin [5].
6. 2 Nov 1960After about three hours, the jury of nine men and three women returns a unanimous not guilty verdict [5][7][8].
7. 10 Nov 1960Penguin's complete edition goes on general sale, with a first print run of 200,000 copies, according to Wikipedia [6].
8. 14 Dec 1960In the House of Lords, Lord Teviot moves to draw attention to the verdict and asks the government to act against such books; several speakers oppose a ban. No ban follows [4][5].

Why was Penguin prosecuted in 1960?

Penguin was prosecuted because it chose to publish the complete novel in order to test the new obscenity law, and the authorities chose to prosecute ^[5][7]. Penguin's own account says the firm deliberately published the book as a test of the Obscene Publications Act 1959, and that its founder Allen Lane was recalled by telegram from Spain in August 1960 ^[7].

The timeline was short, though the sources do not agree on its first stages. In August 1960 Penguin handed copies of the complete text to the police, and a summons followed at Bow Street Magistrates' Court. Wikipedia dates the handover to 16 August and the summons to 25 August, The American Scholar dates the summons to 16 August, and a summons held in the Penguin archive at the University of Bristol is dated 19 August ^[5][12][13]. The edition was Penguin Book number 1484 ^[7]. The case was committed for trial at the Old Bailey, where it opened on 20 October 1960 in Number 1 Court before Mr Justice Byrne ^[5]. Penguin's own account calls it the first prosecution of a work of literary merit under the 1959 Act ^[7].

The sources opened here do not explain in detail why the authorities chose to act against a respected publisher, but they show that the prosecution was understood on both sides as a test case for what the 1959 Act would allow ^[5][7].

The wider background is the changing attitude to sexual morality in the late 1950s. The Wolfenden Report of 1957 had already opened a debate about the proper limits of law in matters of private conduct, a debate described in the article on the Wolfenden Report and the Hart–Devlin controversy. The Lady Chatterley case brought a similar question before a jury of twelve ordinary citizens.

What did the Obscene Publications Act 1959 allow?

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 allowed a publisher accused of obscenity to argue that publication served the public good, and it made expert evidence admissible to support that argument ^[3]. The Act is chapter 66 of 7 and 8 Elizabeth II; Wikipedia gives its Royal Assent as 29 July 1959 and its commencement as 29 August 1959, and the Act itself says it came into operation one month after being passed ^[1][14][15]. It was introduced in the Commons through the Labour MP Roy Jenkins, whose own Obscene Publications Bill had first been put before Parliament in 1955 ^[8][14]. It replaced the common-law approach derived from R v Hicklin (1868), which according to The Collector had been unevenly enforced ^[8][14].

Section 1 sets out the test of obscenity. An article is obscene if its effect, taken as a whole, is to tend to 'deprave and corrupt' those likely to read, see or hear it, considering all the circumstances ^[2]. The test is therefore about the likely effect on its actual audience, not about the mere presence of sexual content. Both sections are shown on legislation.gov.uk as extending to England and Wales ^[2][3].

Section 4 supplies the defence of public good. A person cannot be convicted, and no forfeiture order can be made, if it is proved that publication is justified as being for the public good because it serves the interests of 'science, literature, art or learning', or other objects of general concern ^[3]. Subsection 2 of the same section allows expert opinion on the merits of the article to be admitted in proceedings, to establish or rule out that defence ^[3]. This provision is what made it possible to call literary critics, writers and clergy to the witness box.

The Act has been amended since. The Criminal Law Act 1977 added a narrower version of the public good defence for films and soundtracks, and later amendments widened the definition of publication to include electronic transmission and broadcast ^[2][3]. The legislation.gov.uk record shows the Act as latest available, revised, with no known outstanding effects ^[1][3]. Territory matters: section 5(3) states that the Act does not extend to Scotland or to Northern Ireland, so it is a law of England and Wales only ^[15]. In Scotland, obscene material is dealt with under section 51 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, whose text contains no public good defence of this kind. Northern Ireland has its own rules, which this article does not examine.

Who testified, and what was argued?

The defence called 35 witnesses against, on most accounts, a single prosecution witness, and the contrast shaped the whole trial ^[5][11]. The prosecution team was led by Mervyn Griffith-Jones, Senior Treasury Counsel, with Alastair Morton as junior. The defence team was led by Gerald Gardiner, with Jeremy Hutchinson and Richard du Cann ^[5]. Sources differ on the prosecution's witnesses: Wikipedia names two, Detective Inspector Monahan and Stephen Webb of the Board of Trade, while Lois Bibbings and The American Scholar speak of one, the police officer ^[5][11][12].

The defence witnesses came from literature, the universities, the church and politics. Wikipedia names Helen Gardner, Richard Hoggart, Rebecca West, John Robinson (the Bishop of Woolwich), Roy Jenkins, Raymond Williams and E. M. Forster among them ^[5]. Their task was to establish under section 4 that the novel had literary merit and so served the public good.

Two testimonies became famous. Hoggart's analysis of Lawrence's language was later seen as having a deciding influence, and The Collector reports his argument that Lawrence's use of four-letter words stripped them of their shock value ^[5][8]. The Bishop of Woolwich's testimony produced the headline 'A Book All Christians Should Read' ^[5]. The support of a bishop was especially valuable because it undercut the claim that the book was an attack on Christian morality.

The best-remembered moment came from the prosecution. During the trial, Griffith-Jones asked the jury whether it was a book that they would even wish their 'wife or servants' to read ^[5]. The question drew laughter in court and has been quoted ever since as a symbol of an outdated class and gender outlook. The sources opened here describe it as the line that has echoed longest in popular culture ^[5].

Why did the jury acquit?

The jury acquitted because it was persuaded, on the evidence it heard, that the book was not obscene or that its publication served the public good, and it took about three hours to say so ^[5][7]. The jury of twelve, nine men and three women, returned a unanimous not guilty verdict on 2 November 1960 after a trial that had opened on 20 October ^[8][11].

The sources do not reproduce the jurors' reasoning, and we should not invent it. What can be said is that the defence had given them a legal route, section 4, and a body of respected witnesses who argued that the novel had value as literature ^[3][5]. The 1959 Act had also made it easier for a jury to acquit a serious work without endorsing every word in it.

The judge's reaction was noted. The Penguin article records that Mr Justice Byrne did not thank the jury afterwards, contrary to tradition ^[7]. His annotated copy of the book was sold at Sotheby's in October 2018 to an overseas buyer; in 2019 the government placed a temporary bar on its export at a matching price of £56,250, and the University of Bristol acquired it ^[7][10].

The Lords debated the case on 14 December 1960. Lord Teviot opened by asking the government to take steps against writings of this kind, and Lord Shackleton spoke against it, arguing that the government could not ban books and that the jury's verdict should stand ^[4]. The Bishop of St Albans did not support the motion, favouring guidance over a ban, while Viscount Hailsham questioned whether the House should review a criminal verdict at all ^[4]. The Hansard summary describes Lord Teviot's motion as one to draw attention to the verdict, to ask whether the government would take steps to ban such writings, and to move for papers ^[4]. The part of the record read for this article stops before the end of the debate, so the formal outcome could not be checked there. Wikipedia reports that the motion was defeated in a spoken vote ^[5]. No ban or legislation followed, and the Act and the verdict stood. The Hansard record shows a debate that was heated and often personal, with sarcasm and interruptions ^[4].

How did the verdict change British culture?

The verdict made it much harder to prosecute serious literature for sexual frankness, and it became a symbol of a looser culture ^[5][7]. Wikipedia dates the general release of Penguin's complete edition to 10 November 1960, with a first print run of 200,000 copies that sold out on the first day ^[6]. Later sales figures differ. Penguin's own account says about two million copies sold nationwide within a month; The Collector reports three million within three months, and says the 1961 edition was dedicated to the jury; The American Scholar puts the total at about two million over the following six months ^[7][8][12]. The exact figures should therefore be treated as approximate.

Other works benefited. Penguin notes that the Director of Public Prosecutions did not try to prosecute works such as Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch afterwards, and that the Lord Chamberlain's role as theatre censor was abolished in 1968 ^[7]. The BBFC's own history says that the 1960 challenge under the Obscene Publications Act, and the jury's acquittal, suggested a shift in public opinion that the film censors also had to recognise ^[9].

The case is often linked to the idea of a 'permissive society'. Wikipedia records that Hoggart later associated the trial with that idea, but described the story as exaggerated and over-simple ^[5]. The poet Philip Larkin's poem 'Annus Mirabilis', published in 1974, refers to the end of the Chatterley ban ^[5][6]. The truth lies between the legend and its critics: the verdict did not abolish censorship, but it marked a point at which a jury was prepared to accept the arguments of writers and teachers over those of the prosecution.

The ripple effects spread abroad. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1962, by five votes to four, that the book was not obscene. In India a bookseller was prosecuted in 1964 and the Supreme Court upheld the conviction (reported 1965), and in Australia the customs ban was lifted in July 1965 ^[6]. For related changes in the cultural representation of sex outside marriage in the same period, see A Taste of Honey and the kitchen sink dramas and the survey of British attitudes to sex before marriage.

Frequently asked questions

Why was Lady Chatterley's Lover banned in Britain?

Because its frank descriptions of sex were treated as obscene under the older law that applied before 1959. The complete text circulated only in private or foreign editions until Penguin published it in 1960, and an authorised 1932 British edition left passages out ^[6]. The Obscene Publications Act 1959 then gave publishers a public good defence ^[3].

What did the prosecutor ask the jury?

Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked whether it was a book that the jurors would even wish their wives or servants to read ^[5]. The question drew laughter in court and is often cited as a sign of how out of touch the prosecution seemed ^[5].

How many copies did Penguin sell after the trial?

Sources give different figures. Penguin says about two million copies sold within a month, The Collector reports three million within three months, and The American Scholar gives about two million over six months; Wikipedia reports that the first printing of 200,000 sold out on the first day ^{[6][7][8][12]}. All agree that sales were enormous.

Is the Obscene Publications Act 1959 still in force?

Yes, in amended form, but only in England and Wales. Legislation.gov.uk shows the Act as the latest revised version, and the test of obscenity in section 1 and the public good defence in section 4 remain, while section 5(3) excludes Scotland and Northern Ireland ^{[1][2][3][15]}.

Did the House of Lords ban the book after the trial?

No. On 14 December 1960 Lord Teviot asked the government to act against such writings, but speakers including Lord Shackleton and Viscount Hailsham argued against reviewing a jury's verdict ^[4]. Wikipedia reports that the motion was defeated in a spoken vote, although the record read here does not show the end of the debate ^[4][5].

Was the book tried in other countries?

Yes. Canada's Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in 1962 that it was not obscene, a bookseller was prosecuted in India in 1964 and his conviction upheld, and Australia lifted its ban in July 1965 ^[6]. In Japan a translator and publisher were convicted and fined after a trial that began in 1951 ^[6].