The censorship of fiction

Estate summary

The Dominion reports R. A. Scott-James’s objection to Bram’s argument for censoring fiction. Drawing on a discussion in the Daily News and on G. K. Chesterton, it asks why sexual content should be treated as uniquely harmful while books encouraging greed, pride or other damaging conduct escape the same standard. Scott-James argues that a censor’s personal judgements could suppress moral criticism and protect popular errors. This is a response to Bram’s Nineteenth Century essay, containing quotations from it, rather than the complete essay itself. It preserves contemporary opposition to a position Bram publicly advocated and helps place his argument within an active literary debate.

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