Samuel Roth
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Samuel Roth (1893 - 1974) was an American Jewish publisher and writer.
In the late 1920s, he published an unauthorized version of Ulysses by James Joyce in the United States which led to him being thrown in jail because what he published was considered to be obscene material. Joyce later secured a court injunction preventing Roth from the unauthorized use of his work.
Roth also published sections of Joyce's Work in Progress, later known as Finnegans Wake, and material by D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy in his Two Worlds quarterly, also without the authors' permission.
In 1934, he wrote the honest Jews Must Live explaining to the world of Gentiles the reality of Jewish practices in business. By this time, he had been to jail three times. He served another prison term from 1936 to 1939.
In 1955, he was prosecuted for sending obscene material through the mail. (in fact, containing literary erotica and nude photography). In Roth v. United States (1957), which upheld Roth's conviction, the United States Supreme Court found that although obscene material was not protected by the First Amendment, art, literature and scientific research were protected, even if they had sexual content. Roth served five more years in prison as a result of his conviction.
