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76 pages

English

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As battles over literary censorship continue to rage on, it's vitally important to understand the background of this debate. In this fascinating volume, Farrer catalogs centuries of censorship in England, detailing the books that were identified as prurient, blasphemous or otherwise harmful to the public and doomed to burn. Targeted books range from mysterious volumes of occult knowledge to seemingly innocuous works of history that somehow offended the reigning royals.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 décembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776593378
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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BOOKS CONDEMNED TO BE BURNT
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JAMES ANSON FARRER

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Books Condemned to Be Burnt First published in 1892 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-337-8 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-338-5 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface Introduction Chapter I - Sixteenth Century Book-Fires Chapter II - Book-Fires Under James I Chapter III - Charles the First's Book-Fires Chapter IV - Book-Fires of the Rebellion Chapter V - Book-Fires of the Restoration Chapter VI - Book-Fires of the Revolution Chapter VII - Our Last Book-Fires Appendix Endnotes
Preface
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When did books first come to be burnt in England by the commonhangman, and what was the last book to be so treated? This is thesort of question that occurs to a rational curiosity, but it isjust this sort of question to which it is often most difficult tofind an answer. Historians are generally too engrossed with thedetails of battles, all as drearily similar to one another asscenes of murder and rapine must of necessity be, to spare aglance for the far brighter and more instructive field of themutations or of the progress of manners. The following work is anattempt to supply the deficiency on this particular subject.
I am indebted to chance for having directed me to the interestof book-burning as an episode in the history of the world'smanners, the discursive allusions to it in the old numbers of"Notes and Queries" hinting to me the desirability of a moresystematic mode of treatment. To bibliographers and literaryhistorians I conceived that such a work might prove of utilityand interest, and possibly serve to others as an introduction andincentive to a branch of our literary history that is not withoutits fascination. But I must also own to a less unselfish motive,for I imagined that not without its reward of delight would be atemporary sojourn among the books which, for their boldness ofutterance or unconventional opinions, were not only not receivedby the best literary society of their day, but were with ignominyexpelled from it. Nor was I wrong in my calculation.
But could I impart or convey the same delight to others?Clearly all that I could do was to invite them to enter on thesame road, myself only subserving the humble functions of asignpost. I could avoid merely compiling for them abibliographical dictionary, but I could not treat at length ofeach offender in my catalogue, without, in so exhausting mysubject, exhausting at the same time my reader's patience. I havetried therefore to give something of the life of their historyand times to the authors with whom I came in contact; to cast alittle light on the idiosyncrasies or misfortunes of this one orof that; but to do them full justice, and to enable the reader tomake their complete acquaintance, how was that possible with anyregard for the laws of literary proportion? All I could do was toaim at something less dull than a dictionary, but something farshort of a history.
I trust that no one will be either attracted or alarmed by anyanticipations suggested by the title of my book. Althoughprimarily a book for the library, it is also one of which nodrawing-room table need be the least afraid. If I have foundanything in my condemned authors which they would have donebetter to have left unsaid, I have, in referring to theirfortunes, felt under no compulsion to reproduce theirindiscretions. But, in all of them put together, I doubt whetherthere is as much to offend a scrupulous taste as in many alatter-day novel, the claim of which to the distinction ofburning is often as indisputable as the certainty of itsregrettable immunity from that fiery but fitting fate.
The custom I write about suggests some obvious reflections onthe mutability of our national manners. Was the wisdom of ourancestors really so much greater than our own, as many professto believe? If so, it is strange with how much of that wisdom wehave learnt to dispense. One by one their old customs have fallenaway from us, and I fancy that if any gentleman could come backto us from the seventeenth century, he would be less astonishedby the novel sights he would see than by the old familiar sightshe would miss. He would see no one standing in the pillory, noone being burnt at a stake, no one being "swum" for witchcraft,no one's veracity being tested by torture, and, above all, nohangman burning books at Cheapside, no unfortunate authors beingflogged all the way from Fleet Street to Westminster. The absenceof these things would probably strike him more than even therailways and the telegraph wires. Returning with his old-worldideas, he would wonder how life and property had survived theremoval of their time-honoured props, or how, when all fear ofpunishment had been removed from the press, Church and State werestill where he had left them. Reflecting on these things, hewould recognise the fact that he himself had been living in anage of barbarism from which we, his posterity, were in process ofgradual emergence. What vistas of still further improvement wouldnot then be conjured up before his mind!
We can hardly wonder at our ancestors burning books when werecollect their readiness to burn one another. It was not tillthe year 1790 that women ceased to be liable to be burnt alivefor high or for petit treason, and Blackstone found nothing tosay against it. He saw nothing unfair in burning a woman forcoining, but in only hanging a man. "The punishment of petittreason," he says, "in a man is to be drawn and hanged, and in awoman to be drawn and burned; the idea of which latter punishmentseems to have been handed down to us by the ancient Druids, whichcondemned a woman to be burnt for murdering her husband, and itis now the usual punishment for all sorts of treasons committedby those of the female sex." Not a suspicion seems to havecrossed the great jurist's mind that the supposed barbarity ofthe Druids was not altogether a conclusive justification for thebarbarity of his own contemporaries. So let us take warning fromhis example, and let the history of our practice of book-burningserve to help us to keep our minds open with regard to anomalieswhich may still exist amongst us, descended from as suspicious anorigin, and as little supported by reason.
Introduction
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There is the sort of attraction that belongs to all forbiddenfruit in books which some public authority has condemned to theflames. And seeing that to collect something is a large part ofthe secret of human happiness, it occurred to me that a varietyof the happiness that is sought in book collecting might be foundin making a collection of books of this sort. I have, therefore,put together the following narrative of our burnt literature assome kind of aid to any book-lover who shall choose to take myhint and make the peculiarity I have indicated the key-note tothe formation of his library.
But the aid I offer is confined to books so condemned in theUnited Kingdom. Those who would pursue the study farther afield,and extend their wishes beyond the four seas, will find all theaid they need or desire in Peignot's admirable DictionnaireCritique, Littéraire, et Bibliographique des principaux Livrescondamnés au feu, supprimés ou censurés : Paris, 1806. To haveextended my studies to cover this wider ground would have swollenmy book as well as my labour beyond the limits of my inclination.I may mention that Hart's Index Expurgatorius covers this widerground for England, as far as it goes.
Nevertheless, I may, perhaps, appropriately, by way ofintroduction, refer to some episodes and illustrations ofbook-burning, to show the place the custom had in the developmentof civilisation, and the distinction of good or bad company andancient lineage enjoyed by such books as their punishment byburning entitles to places on the shelves of our fire-library.The custom was of pagan observance long before it passed intoChristian practice; and for its existence in Greece, and for thefirst instance I know of, I would refer to the once famous ornotorious work of Protagoras, certainly one of the wisestphilosophers or sophists of ancient times. He was the firstavowed Agnostic, for he wrote a work on the gods, of which thevery first remark was that the existence of gods at all he couldnot himself either affirm or deny. For this offensive sentimenthis book was publicly burnt; but Protagoras, could he haveforeseen the future, might have esteemed himself happy to havelived before the Christian epoch, when authors came to share withtheir works the purifying process of fire. The world grew lesshumane as well as less sensible as it grew older, and came tothink more of orthodoxy than of any other condition of the mind.
The virtuous Romans appear to have been greater book-burners thanthe Greeks, both under the Republic and under the Empire. It wasthe Senate's function to condemn books to the flames, and theprætor's to see that it was done, generally in the Forum. But forthis evil habit we might still possess many valuable works, suchas the books attributed to Numa on Pontifical law (Livy xl.), andthose eulogies of Pætus Thrasea and Helvidius, which were burnt,and their authors put to death, under the tyranny of Domitian(Tacitus, Agricola 2). Let these cases suffice to connect thecustom with Pagan Rome, and to prove that this particular modeof warring with the expression of free thought boasts itsprecedents in pre-Christian antiquity.
Nevertheless it is the custom a