Editing Lady Chatterley's Lover (section)

=== British obscenity trial ===
{{main |R v Penguin Books Ltd}}
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Lady chatterley's lover 1960 UK unexpurgated edition.png|thumb|upright|1960 British "complete and unexpurgated" edition{{ffdc|1=Lady chatterley's lover 1960 UK unexpurgated edition.png|log=2020 November 4}}]] -->

In November 1960, the full unexpurgated edition, the last of three versions written by Lawrence,<ref name="compleatseanbean-chatterley">{{cite web |last1=Kent |first1=Winona |title=Lady Chatterley |url=https://www.compleatseanbean.com/chatterley.html |website=CompleatSeanBean.com |publisher=Winona Kent |access-date=4 March 2022 |location=Vancouver <!-- https://www.newwestrecord.ca/local-news/people-you-should-know-in-new-west-winona-kent-3876294 -->}}</ref> was published by [[Penguin Books]] in Britain, selling its first print run of 200,000 copies on the first day of publication.<ref name="theguardian.com/books/quiz">{{cite news |title=How well do you know Lady Chatterley? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/quiz/2015/sep/06/lady-chatterleys-lover-quiz-bbc-adaptation |access-date=4 March 2022 |work=[[the Guardian]] |date=6 September 2015 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday">{{cite news |title=10 November 1960: Lady Chatterley's Lover sold out |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/10/newsid_2965000/2965194.stm |access-date=4 March 2022 |work=ON THIS DAY |publisher=BBC}}</ref>

The [[R v Penguin Books Ltd.|trial of Penguin]] under the [[Obscene Publications Act 1959]] was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 Act, introduced by [[Roy Jenkins]], had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. One of the objections was to the frequent use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives. Another objection related to the use of the word "cunt".

Various academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including [[E. M. Forster]], [[Helen Gardner (critic)|Helen Gardner]], [[Richard Hoggart]], [[Raymond Williams]] and [[Norman St John-Stevas]], were called as witnesses. The verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty" and resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, [[Mervyn Griffith-Jones]], asked if it was the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".

The Penguin second edition, published in 1961, contains a publisher's dedication, which reads: "For having published this book, Penguin Books was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the [[Old Bailey]] in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'not guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom".

In 2006, the trial was dramatized by [[BBC Wales]] as ''[[The Chatterley Affair]]''.