When These Books Faced Obscenity Trials, What Exactly Was Deemed ‘Obscene’?

Emily Temple: “‘Obscenity,’ after all, is a pretty wide field. It’s obscene, the number of things I’ve called obscene. So what was it? A certain number of bad words? General sexiness? A queasy feeling in the gut by a well-connected reader? I tracked down a few answers for famous books deemed (by some) obscene. Mostly, it’s about bad words – but sometimes it’s also communism!”