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Mark Twain's Banned Book Is Back, On The Library Shelf A Century Later
Today, with talk and provocative images freely floating on the internet and television screens, it's hard to imagine that books could be banned for mild drawings of nudity. But in Massachussetts of yesteryear, books were taken off of library shelves for a lot less than drawings of nudity. So it is no surprise that Mark Twain's story, Eve's Diary, was chosen by a committee to be taken out of circulation at the Charlton Public Library. What is amazing is that now, over a hundred years later, this "error in judgment" was found and is being corrected.
Place of Honor for "Eve's Diary," by Mark Twain
(NY Times) CHARLTON, Mass. — It took only 105 years, but “Eve’s Diary” is back on the shelf.
Richard Whitehead was researching his new role as a trustee of the public library here when he stumbled on an old, forgotten controversy about the book, Mark Twain’s sly interpretation of the Adam and Eve story.
In 1906, he learned, the library’s trustees voted to ban “Eve’s Diary” because the illustrations, by Lester Ralph, showed a naked (though not graphically so) Eve exploring the wonders of Eden.
“There’s nothing outrageous about them,” Mr. Whitehead said. “It’s kind of a shame that for what seems to me like very good artwork, a great piece of literature was banned.”
The book was among 100 that the small Charlton Public Library added to its collection that year, and the only one that the trustees — the town clerk, a minister and an undertaker — found objectionable. Newspapers around the country wrote with amusement or indignation about the ban, with The New York Times reporting on Nov. 24, 1906, that the town’s librarian, one Hattie L. Carpenter, had perused the Twain book before putting it into circulation and informed Frank Wakefield, a trustee, that she “had her doubts.”
“After looking long and earnestly at one picture depicting Eve pensively reclining on a rock,” said the Times article, which ran on the front page, “Mr. Wakefield decided to act.”
More than a century later, Mr. Whitehead and his fellow trustees voted unanimously (with one of the six absent) on Tuesday to lift the ban and bring “Eve’s Diary” back to their brick library on Main Street. Two copies of the book — with Mr. Ralph’s illustrations, which now seem quite chaste — were put into circulation on Wednesday, as was an audio version for those who prefer to conjure their own images.
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