Picked up a banned copy of Ulysses at a library sale and it had notes in the margins from 1962

Found it for 50 cents at a library sale in Portland last weekend. The notes were from someone who had to read it for a college class back when it was still banned in some places. They wrote things like "this is why they don't want us reading this" next to the steamy parts. It made me think about how much has changed since then. Did anyone else find an old banned book with markings from the past?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole_robinson20d ago

Jeez, sounds like someone's grandpa was living on the edge with that thing. Next to the sappy stuff I bet they wrote something profound like "this is why they banned it... and also my girlfriend's name." For 50 cents you basically paid for a time capsule of someone getting all worked up over a book that's now handed out in high school English classes.

miam1120d agoMost Upvoted

Agree completely, I found a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover at a thrift store in Eugene that had someone's notes from the 1960s. They underlined every curse word and wrote "REAL LIFE" in the margins like it was the most SCANDALOUS thing ever. The best part was on page 89 where they drew a little arrow pointing to a love scene and wrote "MY DAD WOULD KILL ME IF HE KNEW I WAS READING THIS." It really puts the whole censorship thing in perspective when you see someone being so DRAMATIC about what's basically a romance novel now.

aaron_ellis4220d ago

Hang on though, I'm pretty sure high school English classes don't hand out Lady Chatterley's Lover. Most schools still keep that one on the restricted shelf or need a parent's permission slip because of the explicit content. It's definitely tame by today's standards but it's not quite required reading material just yet.