Literary Trials

From the 19th century onwards famous literary trials have caught the attention of readers academics and the public at large. Indeed it is striking that more often than not it was the texts of renowned writers that were dealt with by the courts as for example Gustave Flaubert's <i>Madame Bovary</i> and Charles Baudelaire's <i>Les Fleurs du Mal</i> in France James Joyce's <i>Ulysses </i>and Henry Miller's <i>Tropic of Cancer</i> in the US D.H. Lawrence's <i>Lady Chatterley's Lover</i> in Great-Britain up to the more recent trials on Klaus Mann's <i>Mephisto </i>and Maxim Biller's novel <i>Esra </i>in Germany.<br/><br/>By bringing together international leading experts <i>Literary Trials</i> represents the first step towards a systematic discussion of literary trials on a global scale. Beginning by first reassessing some of the most famous of these trials it also analyses less well-known but significant literary trials. Special attention is paid to recent developments in the relationship between literature and judicature pointing towards an increasing role for libel and defamation in the societal demarcation of what literature is and is not allowed to do.