THE YORKSHIRE EVENING POST

Leeds, Yorkshire, England

22 September 1932

(page 10)

AUTHOR’S COMPLAINT ABOUT A BOOK.

ALLEGED VULGARITY.

Publication Suspended for a Month.

A book which was stated by counsel to be indecent and vulgar was the subject of a motion before Mr. Justice Lawrence in the Vacation Court, to-day.

Mr. Edward Alexander Crowley, an author, known as Aleister Crowley, asked for an injunction against Messrs. Constable, publishers, and Messrs. Charles Wittingham and Griggs, printers, to restrain the further publication of the book.

The authoress, Miss Nina Hamnett, was also a defendant.

Mr. C. Gallop, for Mr. Crowley, said he complained of passages on two pages of the book.

The book was a sort of autobiographical work, and included what, he supposed, were intended to be interesting anecdotes about various people. Among them, Mr. Aleister Crowley. There was not a word of truth in what was written. It was indecent and vulgar, and Mr. Crowley had formally sworn an affidavit deposing that only in recent days had his attention been specifically drawn to the passages in the book.

Counsel added that he found it extremely difficult to understand how the book “Laughing Torso” ever came to be published at all. The printers and publishers, he felt sure, would deal with the matter in the manner one would expect from firms of repute. What the attitude of the authoress towards this work was he did not know. The whole of the first edition had either been exhausted, or was in process of exhaustion.

Perfectly Willing.

Mr. Upjohn, on behalf of the publishers and printers, said that on being served with the notice of motion, they instantly suspended publication, and he was perfectly willing to give an undertaking not to continue publication until further orders. He hoped the matter would be disposed of without troubling the Court further.

The printers had sent Messrs. Constable all the copies in their possession.

Mr. Martin O’Connor, for Miss Hamnett, asked that the matter should stand over to enable publication to be looked into. There would be no further publication or selling of the book meanwhile.

An order was made directing the motion to stand over until October.