Censorship and James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen  

“Thus it came about That Jurgen clambered merrily from Hell to Heaven”

Work of Jurgen Illustrator, Frank C. Papé

Robert M. McBride and Company of New York City published the novel Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, by James Branch Cabell, on September 27, 1919. The novel’s title character, Jurgen, is a middle-aged pawnbroker with an average, if not tiresome wife, Dame Lisa. One day, as Jurgen defends the devil in a show of cleverness, the god who runs the universe, Koshchei, “rewards” Jurgen by abducting his exasperating wife. Jurgen thus embarks (somewhat unenthusiastically) on a year-long journey in pursuit of his wife.

Travelling through real and imagined lands, Jurgen relives many of the youthful indecencies of his earlier years, having numerous affectionate relationships with local women. His dalliances involve an impressive array of famed women, including Dom Manuel’s daughter Dorothy, Lady Guinevere prior to her marriage to King Arthur, a female ghost, the Lady of the Lake, Helen of Troy, the Queen of Philistia, a vampire, and the wife of the Devil. In his travels, Jurgen assumes many roles, dubbing himself a duke, king, prince, emperor, and even the Pope. Upon his final trip into heaven (under the auspices of being the Pope), Jurgen is allowed to choose his new wife from a lineup of women he has known in the past year – one of whom is his scolding, nagging wife Dame Lisa. Jurgen chooses Dame Lisa, citing his dissatisfaction with his previous romps in his statement:

Taken as a whole, this tale might be seen as morally uplifting, highlighting Jurgen’s failure to find any lasting satisfaction with these infamous women and instead return to his mortal wife. Jurgen’s liaisons with these women, however, though couched in metaphoric language, eventually attracted the attention of the censors.

The book sold well for three months, enjoyed about fifty reviews in periodicals across the country, and raised few concerns over any objectionable content. In fact, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice was only alerted to a potential obscenity case when they were forwarded a letter published in the New York Tribune, written by Walter J. Kingsley:

"James Branch Cabell is making a clean getaway with Jurgen, quite the naughtiest book since George Moore began ogling maidservants in Mayo. How come? Dreiser had the law hot after him for The Genius and Hager Revelly came close to landing Daniel Carson Goodman in Leavenworth, yet these volumes are innocent compared with Jurgen, which deftly and knowingly treats in thinly veiled episodes of all perversities, abnormalities and damn foolishness of sex. There is an undercurrent of extreme sensuality throughout the book, and once the trick of transposing the key is mastered one can dip into this tepid stream on every page. Cabell has cleansed his bosom of much perilous stuff – a little too much, in fact, for Jurgen grows tiresome toward the end – but he has said everything about the mechanics of passion and has said it prettily. He has a gift of dulcet English prose, but I like better the men who say things straight out and use gruff Anglo-Saxon monosyllables for the big facts of nature that we are supposed to ignore.

It is curious how the non-reading public discovered Jurgen. A few days after it appeared on the newsstands a male vampire of the films who once bought Stevenson’s Underwoods in the belief that it was a book of verses hymning a typewriter, began saying up and down Broadway: “Say kid, get a book called Jurgen. It gets away with murder.”

     - "Jurgen and the Non-Reading Public," Walter J. Kingsley, New York Tribune.3

The next day, as Mr. McBride was not in the area, the secretary of the company, Guy Holt, answered the summons and appeared in court. The hearing was set for January 23, 1920. On that day, Mr. Holt pled “not guilty” in court, and the case was committed for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The trial was set for March 8, 1920. Mr. John Quinn was retained as council for the publisher in February, and had the case again moved, this time to the Grand Jury of the Court of General Sessions. The Grand Jury indicted Robert McBride, Guy Holt, and Robert M. McBride & Co. On May 17, 1920, the defendants again pled “not guilty,” and awaited trial until October 16, 1922.5

In the two years that passed between the issuing of the charges and the trial of the publishers, Cabell’s Jurgen enjoyed relative success and Cabell himself became a figure of notoriety in certain circles. Though Cabell already had such fans and supporters as H.L. Mencken, Aleister Crowley, Carl Van Vechten, and Ellen Glasgow, the suppresion of his novel increased his readership throughout the 1920s. The Emergency Committee Organized to Protest against the Suppression of James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen organized an effort to prevent the censoring of this novel, and sent out letters requesting support from individuals wishing not to assert the decency or indecency of Cabell’s work, but rather to “protest against a law and a particular organization having the power to prevent the circulation of works of art.” The protest was signed by many influential figures of society at the time, including Hugh Walpole, Gilbert Cannan, Sinclair Lewis, Christopher Morley, H.L. Mencken, and others.6

Of those who choose not to sign the petition, several reasons abounded. One prominent American artist, agreeing with the necessity to curb censorship but not being familiar with Jurgen in particular, wrote back to the Committee that “[Jurgen] probably is smutty – most American things are.”7 Several others declined to sign, citing lack of knowledge of the book itself and wishing not to be involved in the matter personally. The committee, realizing the importance of their work in relation to censorship laws, strove to “radically amend” the laws created by Comstock and enforced by his successors. As justification, the Committee sought to have the book considered as a unified product rather than an amalgamation of unrelated parts. To that end, the Committee stated:

Despite the protest against this case of censorship, the attempt at banning Jurgen greatly aided the book’s circulation. The suppression of the title led to “a widespread and morbid interest in the book on the part of young people of both sexes” and “booksellers in many parts of the country testified to the fact that young men and women in hundreds sought surreptitiously to buy copies of Jurgen after the news of its suppression was spread abroad.”9

The obscenity trial began on October 16, 1922 and ended on October 19, 1922. In his statement regarding the case, presiding judge Charles C. Nott declared that “the most that can be said against the book is that certain passages therein may be considered suggestive in a veiled and subtle way of immorality, but such suggestions are delicately conveyed" and that “it is doubtful if the book could be read or understood at all by more than a very limited number of readers."10 Cabell and his publishers were cleared of all charges.  

To today’s reader, the ordeal surrounding Cabell’s Jurgen may seem insignificant. Yet the effects of this and similar trials can still be felt in modern times, as we struggle with issues of censorship and decency in a multitude of increasingly intimate and immediate media outlets. At the same time that Jurgen publishers were contesting these charges, James Joyces’ Ulysses also fell beneath the microscope of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which stopped publication of the work for some time and destroyed many existing copies. Joyce was not able to publish his book in America until 1933. In the United States, books that have been challenged include The Chocolate War (Robert Cormier), the Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling), Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret (Judy Blume), The Giver (Lois Lowry), Cujo (Stephen King), The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison), and a host of others. Many of these books are challenged for presenting material relating to sexuality, religion, adult themes, family values, political views, and minority rights – all issues which a thoughtful reading of Cabell’s Jurgen might likewise uncover.

   James Branch Cabell writing Jurgen While on a visit to Virginia Beach, August, 1918.

“What can be done, you ask me, to better the present literary situation? Not much, I fear: for we contend against well-meaning and courageous persons who fight for high aims. […] The officers and backers of the society’s imbecilities, also, quite honestly, believe that they are engaged in praiseworthy work when, to cite a recent example, they hale Mademoiselle de Maupin into the police courts. Indeed, they appear inebriated to these antics by very much the same real love of virtue which incites some of their congeners to burn an unruly negro as a torch to illumine their reprehension of lawlessness, and yet others to express their disfavor of intemperance by decreeing that wine is too atrocious a compound to be employed for any purpose except to symbolize the blood of Jesus Christ.” 11

This website was created by Jennifer Smith in the fall of 2008 for the Media Art and Text Program at VCU - the course was MATX 690: Documentary. Ray Bonis, Special Collections and Archives, helped with the HTML.

Electronic Sources:

VCU’s Online Exhibit on James Branch Cabell

Notes on Jurgen

Electronic Text of Jurgen

Banned Books Websites:

American Library Association's Banned Book site

The Forbidden Library- Banned and Challenged Books

Banned Books Online