JohnAKeith
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The author, Neil Miller, will be reading from his new non-fiction book on Wednesday evening at 6:30 at the BPL.
I found out about this through the NLGJA (National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association) but everyone is invited to the reading. Afterward, NLGJA members will make the short trip over to Club Cafe for cocktails and discussion.
In this spectacular romp through the Puritan City, Neil Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America, forever linked with the infamous catchphrase "Banned in Boston."
Bankrolled by society's upper crust, the New England Watch and Ward Society acted as a quasi-vigilante police force and notorious literary censor for over eighty years. Often going over the heads of local authorities, it orchestrated the mass censorship of books and plays, raided gambling dens and brothels, and utilized spies to entrap prostitutes and their patrons.
Miller deftly traces the growth of the Watch and Ward, from its formation in 1878 to its waning days in the 1950s. During its heyday, the society and its imitators banished modern classics by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Sinclair Lewis and went to war with publishing and literary giants such as Alfred A. Knopf and The Atlantic Monthly.
More on the book, here:
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2148
I found out about this through the NLGJA (National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association) but everyone is invited to the reading. Afterward, NLGJA members will make the short trip over to Club Cafe for cocktails and discussion.
In this spectacular romp through the Puritan City, Neil Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America, forever linked with the infamous catchphrase "Banned in Boston."
Bankrolled by society's upper crust, the New England Watch and Ward Society acted as a quasi-vigilante police force and notorious literary censor for over eighty years. Often going over the heads of local authorities, it orchestrated the mass censorship of books and plays, raided gambling dens and brothels, and utilized spies to entrap prostitutes and their patrons.
Miller deftly traces the growth of the Watch and Ward, from its formation in 1878 to its waning days in the 1950s. During its heyday, the society and its imitators banished modern classics by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Sinclair Lewis and went to war with publishing and literary giants such as Alfred A. Knopf and The Atlantic Monthly.
More on the book, here:
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2148