1915 Wartime, with the emergency powers assumed by the state, invariably brings in censorship. On 30 September 1915, D.H. Lawrence’s fourth novel The Rainbow (the work that posterity generally applauds as his masterpiece) was published. It drew a chorus of disparagement from the London reviewers, as ‘worse than Zola’ and a filthy exhortation to unbridled sexual licence. Obscurely, it was also felt to be unpatriotic (the oblique criticism of the Boer War, in the narrative’s later section, was found fault with on this score). Two reviewers roundly called on the authorities to take action against the publisher, Methuen.
A search warrant was duly procured on 3 November and a thousand warehoused copies were seized. The publishers were prosecuted that same month. None of Lawrence’s literary friends were prepared – such was the vindictive mood of the time – to offer themselves as witnesses for the defence. The pusillanimous publisher offered no defence, merely stating (to avoid a punitive fine) that they ‘regretted having published it’. They piously testified to the court that they ‘wished they had scrutinised the manuscript more carefully’. They did not trouble to inform Lawrence about the prosecution, possibly to protect his feelings – more likely to get the embarrassing affair out of the way with as little publicity as possible. Methuen escaped with a mere ten guineas costs.
On 13 November 1915 the Bow Street magistrate, Sir John Dickinson (under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act), solemnly determined The Rainbow to be ‘a mass of obscenity’ and ordered all copies, in shops, warehouses, and libraries to be seized and burned to protect the British population. Lawrence’s patron, Lady Ottoline Morrell, attempted vainly to have the matter raised in Parliament. The home secretary had more important things to worry about.
The bonfires were stocked on 14 November for incineration the next day. The shameful conflagration was completed, by legal order, within the week. Lawrence and his wife Frieda (née von Richthofen) attempted, unsuccessfully, to get passports and exit visas for America. Lawrence, chronically unhealthy, was called up for medical examination by the War Office in December; a horrific experience vividly recalled in the ‘Nightmare’ section of Kangaroo (see 28 June).
The Lawrences, denied emigration, found refuge in a cottage in Cornwall for the duration of the war, where they were suspected of being spies and ostracised. The Rainbow did not see unexpurgated publication until 1926.
In later life, invoking the suffering of Christ, Lawrence declared: ‘The War finished me: it was the spear through the side of all sorrows and hopes.’ His battles with the ‘censor morons’ would continue until his last novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. That too was banned.
By a nice coincidence, Kenneth Tynan took the battle to the censor morons of his own day with his epochal ejaculation of ‘fuck’ on the BBC on 13 November 1965. Fifty years to the day of The Rainbow’s prosecution.