Banned 2: Three "Indecent" Novels Censored by the Courts By //

A collection of three long-lost novels that were censored or banned when they were originally published.

ANY MAN’S PLAYMATE by James Rubel

A pulp noir classic, declared obscene in 1960, now back in print for the first time in decades.

When beautiful abstract artist Nicolette Starmont took rough-and-tumble law student Mel Corbin to her bed as her model and gigolo, he considered himself very lucky. She loved sex, which inspired her art, but it also filled an aching, insatiable hunger for her that no man alone could satisfy. He soon discovered that the hot, carefree eighteen-year-old was already a widow, and that she’d eagerly satisfy her needs with men or women, depending upon who was handly, willing and had the necessary stamina. But as she rises in the art world and he becomes a criminal defense lawyer, their unusual, years-long, purely sexual arrangement takes a horrific turn, shattering their world and forcing Mel into the fight of his life.

Previously published as Any Two Can Play, the book was declared as obscene and unmailable by the U.S. Postal Service in October 1960, along with eighteen other novels, including Demands of the Flesh and Fear of Incest (aka Design for Debauchery) by March Hastings and First Person, Third Sex by Sloane Britain, all republished by Cutting Edge.

THE BAWDY MRS. GREY by Henry Lewis Nixon

She Had the Body of an Angel…and the Soul of a Devil.

Kitty Grey is a young, conniving private nurse who married her much-older patient — a rich, pudgy, hotel magnate in poor health who was desperate for a wife. She loves his money, his mansion and his servants, but he can’t satisfy her raging, physical needs…and she’s not willing to wait until he dies to to get what she wants. So she seduces Mike Callahan, an ex-GI with a criminal past, and convinces her husband to hire him as their driver, creating a deadly triangle of passion, betrayal and greed.

In 1959, a Cleveland delicatessen owner was arrested on obscenity charges for sellng this book… but the charges were dropped when the D.A. couldn’t prove the man was aware of the content of the novels sold in his shop, which were stocked and managed by a book distributor. This novel, racy and scandalous in its day, is tame by today’s standards…and has been out of print for over sixty years.

CARLOTTA McBRIDE by Charles Gorham

Who is Carlotta McBride? In the swank nightclubs of New York, Hollywood and Paris, she is the beautiful and brilliant star of stage and screen… but in the dark, lurid dive bars and dark alleys of those same cities, she is promiscuous and self-destructive, slowly killing herself with alcohol, drugs, and risky sex. She is a woman seared and haunted by trauma in her past that she can’t escape, whether it’s in the fantasy world of acting, or at the bottom of a whisky bottle, or in the arms of a brutal man. The only person who can save her is herself…but to do it, she will have to confront a shocking truth.

In September 1960, a judge in Melbourne, Australia declared the book “disgusting to the normal mind” and ordered its seizure and destruction… and the prosecution of booksellers offering the book. In his order, he said “this novel deals with uninhibited sex relations in a manner which is disgusting to the normal mind. I conclude, because of the disgusting description of ordinary bodily functions, that the book would tend to deprave or corrupt those into whose hands it might come.”

“The book is, of course, very readable, but the pleasure in it is spoilt by a suspicion that the whole plot is designed as an excuse to tell a sleazy and sexy story. Modern literary craftsmanship is often so good that it can disguise the essential baseness of a book’s substance. A frightening thought.” Melbourne Age

, , / , , ,