Dirt for Art's Sake: Books on Trial from "Madame Bovary" to "Lolita"

Acknowledgments

E mbarking on a project of this scope I needed help, and I am pleased to report that a number of intelligent and qualified people have been generous enough to read and comment on parts of this book and thereby reduce my chances of making a fool of myself in public. Sherry Sable, Suzanne Nash, Inès Weikel, Laure Murat, Mary McKinley, Julian Barnes, Priscilla Ferguson, Lenard Berlanstein, Sophia Rosenfeld, Joseph Valente, John Lyons, Julian Connolly, Isabelle Chagnon, Joanna Stalnaker, and Pierre Force read and commented on parts of the manuscript and thus have my enduring gratitude. Antoine Compagnon, Françoise Meltzer, and David Halperin have been invaluable interlocutors , and the book is richer for their comments. Kirsten Cather provided information about the Japanese trials of Lady Chatterley. Lucienne Frappier-Mazur read a preliminary version of the epilogue and helped prevent me from making embarrassing errors about Sade. Bernhard Kendler, who earned my enmity by retiring, nonetheless merits great thanks not only by having encouraged me on this project from the outset but also by reading the prologue and first four chapters and advising me on readability. Luckily, Cornell University Press provided Roger Haydon, Teresa Jesionowski, and Jack Rummel, who have done an excellent job of textual midwifery. Gordon Braden has been a source of morale as well as advice from the first, and he also took me out to lunch more than a few times. Gerald Prince provided useful comments as well as delightful companionship. Elena Russo has served as my chief consultant on matters eighteenth century , and therefore any remaining errors in that area may safely be attributed to her. Marjorie Heins has been generous enough to read through the entire thing and tactfully point out some of the ways in which I am not a legal scholar. Cheryl Krueger has been a true friend and interlocutor throughout, as have Élisabeth Lebovici and Catherine Facerias. Edmund White has provided encouragement and advice in addition to stimulating  Acknowledgments xxiii conversation about the many forms indecency takes. Delphine Dufour’s capable and intelligent assistance allowed me to complete the final stages of editing without going insane. As for Jean-Yves Pouilloux, who has among other impressive feats read the manuscript more than once, my intellectual debt to him can never adequately be repaid, but I have not stopped trying. I am grateful to the University of Virginia for providing the Sesquicentennial Research Grant that allowed me to get going on this project in 2001–2, as well as several Summer Research Grants and also University Seminar Grants, which provided me with a forum for trying out my ideas on innocent first-year students. The latter too deserve thanks, for gamely bearing with me through the reading, watching, and discussion of works, some of which they found alarming. I thank the University of California– Berkeley, Columbia University, Vassar College, Johns Hopkins University, Emory University, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, the Sorbonne, and Royal Holloway University of London, as well as the University of Virginia Queer Scholarship Series, for giving me the chance to pontificate about my ideas on indecency in front of captive audiences. Emma Cobb remains Emma Cobb, for which I will always be grateful; tautology alone conveys the measure of my affection. And finally, words can never express my loving gratitude to Brigitte Mahuzier, for reading everything, being willing to listen to innumerable monologues about literature and censorship, and for sticking with me through all of this. E.L. xxiv Acknowledgments Dirt for Art’s Sake ...