INJUNCTION FOR CESSATION OF THE

PUBLICATION OF LAUGHING TORSO

22 September 1932

In 1932 the author Nina Hamnett published a book entitled Laughing Torso. In it she recounted several anecdotes about Crowley including a reference to him having "practised that loathsome thing known as Black Magic." Crowley considered himself to have been libeled by her and sought an injunction to cease production of the book.

On 20 September 1932, Crowley's attorney, Isidore Kerman, served a writ on Nina Hamnett's publisher, Constable & Co., to immediately cease production of Laughing Torso until the courts heard Crowley's libel complaint. Two days later in Vacation Court, Chancery, Crowley argued that Hamnett's collection of anecdotes about him were indecent, vulgar, and ignorant. They were equally untrue. and he couldn't understand how the book came to be written. On 22 September Justice Lawrence ruled that the injunction against Constable & Co. should stand until a 5 October hearing.