Publishing, the Rules of the Trade

The Marquis de Sade case

Maurice Garçon, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, original edition, 1957, Coll. Bfm - Limoges

The trial was an event.  Fashionable writers upheld the publisher: Jean Paulhan, Georges Bataille, André Breton and Jean Cocteau. The argument of producing an edition for a select readership, which Pauvert defended, was refuted by the prosecution. Apart from the obscenity of Sade’s writings, his lawyer, Maître Garçon, advanced their philosophical and literary originality. Pauvert received fines. But another condemnation for offending public decency nevertheless authorised limited editions for students. The censorship of Histoire de Juliette was annulled on the grounds of a legal technicality. Sade’s work could be published. In the 1960s, the 1949 law was evoked to protect minors from all access to Sade with bans on displaying his books. It was 1990s that all censorship was lifted on his work.