2003/01/01 by Celia Marshik · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #American and British Literature Analysis #Modern American Literature Studies #World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact #Publicity #Censorship #History #Newspaper #Performance art #Publishing #Art history #Art #Media studies #Law #Sociology #Literature #Political science
paper · doi:10.1353/jml.2004.0019
openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
On February 21, 1929, Norah James, the advertising and publicity manager at Jonathan Cape's publishing house, was on her way to work when she passed a news placard that proclaimed "Woman's Novel Seized." James did not stop to buy a copy of the paper, but she would later discover that it was her first novel, Sleeveless Errand, selling papers that day. The night before, plain-clothes policemen had seized all copies of the book after Eric Partridge, the novel's publisher, unwillingly provided them with a list of "every bookseller to whom the book had been delivered."1 Thus did Norah James and her novel about the effects of wartime morality find their way onto the front pages and subsequently into the history of British censorship.