Literature, like every other living thing, has its growing-up moments. The English novel, for example, achieved a new level of adulthood in 1960, with the acquittal of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover at the Old Bailey. What that judgment meant — to give a flip example — is that Martin Amis could publish things that Kingsley Amis, his dad, would have risked prison by publishing. It doesn’t mean that Martin’s fiction is better, just that he has fewer “keep out” signs.
That victory for “enlightenment” is usually credited to two people. One was Roy Jenkins, who pushed the new Obscene Publications Act through Parliament. The other was the publisher Allen Lane, who risked jail by publishing the banned book. But for those who care to dig,