A Book-Burning Party, Evening Star (Article, 1929)

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A Book-Burning Party

Mad holiday parties were the rage. One particularly amusing one was given by a woman novelist. She called it a "revenge party," and it took the form of a protest against the recent banning of Miss Radclyffe Hall's book, "The Well of Loneliness."

Copies of the ill-fated novel had to be burned by order of a magistrate, so every guest was asked to bring a book which in his or her opinion was more deserving of cremation than Miss Hall's novel.

Samuel Smiles' "Self Help" was quickly consigned to the flames, while a battered copy of "Eric, or Little by Little," soon followed. "Adam Bede" and "Tess of D'Urbervilles" were condemned amid laughter as unsuitable for youth perusal. But Rabelais' "The Cameron," "Confessions of an Opium Eater" and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" were spared, on the grounds that they had never been banned by a home secretary.