Banned from leaving Britain, judge’s copy of Lady Chatterley (complete with wife’s notes!)
THE obscenity trial over Dh Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a national sensation.
The 1960 case was also a watershed moment in Britain’s cultural history, when the legacy of Victorian morality was finally overtaken by the liberal attitudes of the Swinging Sixties.
At the very centre of the controversy was a single copy of the book used by the judge who presided over the trial.
Now that book – complete with notes by his wife – has been barred from export because of its cultural significance. The book sold for £56,250 last year and the new owner had planned to take it abroad. UK buyers now have until October to match that sum.
Those who want to export items of cultural significance must apply for a licence. The temporary block means potential UK purchasers, including collectors and museums, have until August 9 to declare their intention and up to three months more to find the cash.
Any campaign to keep the book in Britain is likely to involve The Friends of the National Libraries, a charity set up to help UK libraries acquire books, manuscripts and archives, especially those that might otherwise leave the country.
Arts minister Michael Ellis said he hoped a buyer could be found in order to ‘keep this important part of our nation’s history in the UK’.
Judge Sir Laurence Byrne’s copy contains two pages of notes, annotations, a list of page numbers, and summaries of various parts of the novel.
Much of the writing was done by his wife Dorothy, who was allowed to sit with him on the
‘Important part of our history’
bench. The novel had been released in France and Italy two years before Lawrence’s death in 1930 but was not published in the UK for fear of prosecution over its sexual content.
But in August 1960 Penguin finally went ahead, leading to the case under the Obscene Publications Act.
The Bishop of Woolwich spoke against the book, with academics defending it. however, the prosecution was ridiculed when barrister Mervyn Griffith- Jones asked if it were the kind of book ‘you would wish your wife or servants to read’.
A jury returned a not guilty verdict and the novel went on to sell in its millions.
Experts on The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest recommended that the judge’s copy should stay in Britain. Committee chairman Sir hayden Phillips said it ‘may be the last surviving contemporary “witness” who took part in the proceedings.’