The UK publication of DH Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, gripped the nation in 1960. In History looks at the highly publicised trial that led to its release – and the rush to see what all the fuss was about. Until November 1960, British people were prevented from reading Lady Chatterley's Lover by a law that criminalised the publication of writing considered indecent and immoral.
The British publishing house, Penguin Books , wanted to challenge the Obscene Publications Act by printing a complete, uncensored edition of DH Lawrence's book. The resulting trial symbolised social changes that had been bubbling under in the years since World War Two, and demonstrated the gulf between the public and those who saw themselves as the guardians of established morals. Lady Chatterley's Lover had been published privately in Italy and France in the late 1920s, but was banned thereafter in several countries around the world including the US, Australia and Japan.
In the years leading up to the trial, writers and publishers in Britain had become increasingly worried by the number of books being prosecuted for obscenity. In an attempt to allay these fears, the UK's Parliament introduced a new Obscene Publications Act in 1959 that promised "to provide for the protection of literature and to strengthen the law concerning pornography". This amendment provided a defence for anyone accused of publishing a "dirty book".
It allowed them to argue that a piece of work should be published i.
