Freedom of the press and censorship was a subject that George Orwell would return to frequently throughout his articles, essays and novels. It seems therefore highly appropriate that his first piece to appear in print should be about this very subject. ‘La Censure en Angleterre’, translated into French by H.J Salemson and published by Monde on the 6th of October 1928, would mark the start of Eric Blair’s newly chosen career as a writer. It was an auspicious start for someone who had been in Paris for a mere 4 months. To appear in print so quickly after arriving on the scene must have been a source of pride for the young Englishman. What’s more, Monde had kudos, having been founded by Henri Barbusse, the highly influential author and political activist. The inclusion of Eric Blair’s article and a later one on John Galsworthy (published on the 23rd of March 1929) was an important cornerstone that placed him at the cutting edge of the Montparnasse literary scene and at the heart of left-wing, communist thought.
Late 1928 and early 1929 saw four more pieces published by E.A.Blair (in French) in another left-wing radical journal, Le Progrès Civique. Although he undoubtedly hoped this pattern would continue and that this was only to be the start of a promising career in the French capital, this was not to be the case. Whether through a relative lack of contacts, the fact that his articles required translating, or maybe just that his literary aspirations lay elsewhere, the offers dried up. The short run of French pieces that began with “La Censure en Angleterre” in October 1928 and ended with “Comment on exploite un peuple. — L’Empire britannique en Birmanie“ (Le Progrès Civique) in May 1929 would represent almost* his entire published output as a journalist until his work for The New Adelphi, upon returning to England, in 1930.
The first article Eric Blair wrote for Monde, most probably originally titled Censorship in England, is interesting for several reasons. It’s not only a window onto the “strange” world of English censorship at the time but a glimpse into the mindset and preoccupations of the author himself. I find it curious to note that even he seems vaguely shocked by some of the works he mentions. This is not to say that he advocates their censorship – the article clearly makes a case for its abolition – but he evidently feels a degree of the prudishness that he attributes to others. The young man’s voice is also very present, as are the literary references he seems keen to point to his knowledge of. The structure is somewhat untidy, repetitious, sometimes rambling and he even seems comfortable backing up one theory with a sentence that would – I know from experience – get an English Literature essay scrunched up and thrown back at any student with an E- attached…
“This explanation cannot be verified, but it fits the facts better than any other.”
Well, maybe a D-…but to give La censure en Angleterre a mark at all would be missing the point. As the future George Orwell’s first published article, its importance clearly goes beyond mere literary credibility. For this reason – and because it is only currently available to read as part of The Complete works of George Orwell – I have taken the liberty of reverse engineering H.J.Salemson’s French translation from 1928 and rendering it back into something I hope would be close to the original English text, which along with the original English versions of the Le Progrès Civique articles, have never come to light.
Duncan Roberts – Paris, May 2024
*A Farthing Newspaper appeared in the English journal, G.K’s Weekly in late 1928.
Illustration of Monde (issue 517) courtesy of Darcy Moore. Read more on Barbusse, Salemson and a wealth of other Orwell related treasures at www.darcymoore.net
Censorship in England – by E.A.Blair
Monde, October the 6th, 1928
The current situation regarding censorship in England is as follows: for the theatre, prior to being staged, each play must be approved by a government-appointed censor, who can oppose its staging or demand changes should it be deemed harmful to public morality. This censor is a civil servant like any other and has not been chosen due to any literary aptitude. They have banned or hindered the staging of half the plays of any worth that have been performed in England over the last fifty years.
Ibsen’s The Revenants, Brieux’s Les Avariés and George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s profession; all plays with a solid moral core – sometimes painfully so – have been excluded from the English stage for many years. Meanwhile, Reviews and the usual Musical offerings, openly pornographic in nature, have undergone only minimal changes.
With regards to literature, there is no censorship prior to publication but any novel can be removed from sale once published, as for instance was the case with James Joyce’s Ulysees and The Wells of solitude. The ban is generally brought about due to public outcry; there is no group of civil servants employed to this end. A clergyman delivers a sermon, someone writes a letter to the newspapers, a weekend journalist writes an article, petitions are sent to the Home Secretary and the book is banned. Copies are then sold in secret for five guineas. But – and here is the strangest part of the story – there is no censorship of non-contemporary books or plays. Shakespeare is performed on the English stage; Swift, Chaucer and Sterne are printed and sold un-abridged and unchallenged. Even Sir Thomas Urquhart’s translation of Rabelais (quite possibly the most vulgar book in the world) is relatively easy to obtain. If however any one of these writers were living in England today and writing in their usual style, their books would, without a doubt, be banned and the writers themselves would be prosecuted.
The controversies that arise around this subject are evident. They clearly show that some form of censorship is required. But to understand how we arrived at this extraordinary juncture it is necessary to recognise that something quite odd has happened to the general English mindset over the last fifty years. As previously stated, Smollett and Sterne were fairly vulgar writers; and yet, in the works of Sir Walter Scott or Jane Austen only 60 or 70 years later, this vulgarity has entirely vanished. Traces of it can still be found between 1820 and 1850 in the works of Surtees and Marryatt. There are no signs of vulgarity or even of sexuality in Thackeray, Dickens, Charles Reade or Anthony Trollope.
What strange shift came about so suddenly in the English psyche? What could explain the surprising difference between Smollett and his disciple Dickens who was writing not even half a century later?
In answering these questions we have to keep in mind that apart from a short-lived wave of puritanism in the 1600s, there was almost no literary censorship in England prior to the 18th century. When we take this into consideration it seems reasonable to cite the industrial revolution – which brought the puritanical merchant class back to power – as the reason for this sudden rise in prudishness. The easily shocked middle class was no doubt just as prudish in 1850 as it was in 1750 or even today, but without access to political power it could not impose these views on the general public. This explanation cannot be verified, but it fits the facts better than any other.
This leads us to another curious question. Why does the idea of what is decent differ so much from one era to another and among different people? The English intellectual has returned, in spirit at least, to the 18th century: they do not find Smollet or Rabelais shocking in the slightest. However, the English general public, in line with the readers of Dicken’s time, decried Ibsen in the 1880s and would do the same again if he reappeared tomorrow. Why is there such a difference in attitude between these two classes? For – and this needs underlining – if Rabelais shocked the public of Dicken’s time, Dickens shocks cultured English people today; and not only Dickens. Almost all English language authors from the middle of the 19th century (including Americans) with their penchant for all that is macabre and lugubrious, greatly offend the modern, sensitive man. These writers were drawn to mortuary chambers, corpses and funerals. Dickens wrote a passage describing a case of spontaneous combustion that is truly sickening to read today. Mark Twain, the American satirist often joked about decaying carcasses that had been left out in the open. Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories describing such horrors that several of them (notably The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar) were considered inappropriate to be published in France unabridged. These authors didn’t however rile the English public at all — far from it.
What should we draw from this? Simply that the extraordinary and illogical censorship at play in England today is the result of pruderie that would (were it not for their great standing) ban Chaucer and Shakespeare along with James Joyce. This is a pruderie with its roots in a strange English puritanism which has no problem with squalor, but fears sexuality and abhors beauty.
It is illegal today, not only to swear, but to print a swear word, even though there are few more likely to swear than the English. In the same way, any serious play on prostitution will likely be banned from the English stage, as any prostitute is likely to be charged; even though, as we know, prostitution is just as common in England as elsewhere.
There are signs that this state of affairs will not last forever – we can already note a little more freedom with regards to the printed word compared to fifty years ago. If any government were bold enough to abolish literary censorship, we would realise that we had been led astray by a relatively small minority for several decades. Then, a century later, this strange moral and literary censorship would surely appear to us as foreign and fantastic as the marital customs of central Africa.
E.A. BLAIR
Read the original French translation of the article here…
Note: Theatre censorship requiring prior vetting of a play was finally abolished in England in 1968, and laws on literary censorship were amended to include a Literary Merit clause in 1959. This was first tested successfully by Penguin (for Lady Chatterley’s Lover) in 1960. All films still require a certificate for general UK release. In general terms, censorship in England since Orwell’s time has become even more complicated with the requirements of policing on-line and video game content.