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In 1898 I published a translation of Sudermann's "Der Katzensteg," under the title of "Regina"; in 1906 of "Es War," under the title of "The Undying Past," and in 1908 of "Der Täufer," under the title of "John the Baptist." All these books were translated by Miss Beatrice Marshall, and the translations were received in England, America, and Germany with enthusiasm alike by critics and the public. I was therefore naturally anxious to publish Herr Sudermann's great novel, "Das hohe Lied," on which he had been working for a great number of years, but I found that Mr. B. W. Huebsch of New York, the well-known American publisher, had purchased the world rights in the translation. My only chance therefore was to purchase from him the translation he had had made, and this I acquired in sheet form, as he had already copyrighted the book in this country. My edition of the work appeared here in October, 1910, under the title of "The Song of Songs."

Serious objections were then raised to it in certain quarters, and I should like to place on record here exactly what happened and in proper sequence, by first of all printing a letter which I wrote to Sir Melville Macnaghten. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard; a circular letter which I sent to the book trade; and a circular letter which I sent to the Incorporated Society of Authors and the following well-known novelists, together with such replies as I received:

E. F. Benson	Eden Phillpotts
Mrs. W. K. Clifford	G. B. Shaw
Sir A. Conan Doyle	Miss May Sinclair
Sir Gilbert Parker	Thomas Hardy
Miss Beatrice Harraden	Miss M. P. Willcocks
A. E. W. Mason	Israel Zangwill
H. G. Wells

London, W.,

December 9th, 1910.

Sir Melville Macnaghten,

Criminal Investigation Department,

New Scotland Yard, S.W.

Dear Sir,

I am told that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan called at my office to-day to inform me that complaint had been made of "The Song of Songs," by Hermann Sudermann, which was described as an obscene book. Through ill-health I have not been at my office for several weeks, although I happen to be in London to-day on my way to Brighton; but my manager immediately came to me and communicated what had passed. The officers informed him that you do not associate yourself at the present juncture with the opinion that has been expressed upon the book, but that their object was to draw my attention to the fact that complaint had been made.

I very much appreciate your kindness in causing the officers to call upon me, and they were quite right in their assumption that I should be the last person to wish to publish an obscene book. Although I am under doctor's orders, I have delayed my departure for Brighton to write letters to some of the most distinguished novelists of the day and to the Society of Authors, to whom I am sending copies of "The Song of Songs," asking them to acquaint me with their opinion, at the same time informing them of what has occurred. As soon as I receive their views, I shall be guided by them in my action and will inform you of my decision. I presume that this action on my part meets with your approval.

Yours faithfully,

John Lane.

PS.--I enclose a copy of my letter to the authors.

I feel I must add a personal word of thanks to you for your consideration in this matter. You will, I am sure, see my position. I am dealing with the reputation of one of the greatest literary figures in Europe, and it is absurd for me to assume the rôle of judge, especially as you do not associate yourself with the--to me--anonymous accusation. It is all the more difficult from the fact that this same translation has been sold in tens of thousands in the U.S.A., where the reading public is much more prudish than here.

London, W.,

December 9th, 1910.

Dear Sir or Madam,

For some weeks I have been laid up with a serious attack of bronchitis, but I am fortunately in London to-day, although not at my office, on my way to Brighton.

I have just been informed that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan, from the Criminal Investigation Department, have called to-day at my office, saying that a complaint has been made against Hermann Sudermann's novel, "The Song of Songs," which was published in Germany under the title of "Das hohe Lied." It is described as obscene, but the officers assured my manager that the Chief Commissioner does not at the present juncture associate himself with this expression. They explained that their call is to draw my attention to the fact that a serious complaint has been made, so that if the Public Prosecutor takes action I shall not be able to say that, had I known the book to be objectionable, I should immediately have withdrawn it. The book has been read by the Officers of the C.I.D., for so they told my manager. The translation is by an American, and it was printed in America, where it has been in circulation for many months past, and has been one of the most successful books of the year. I am writing to the Chief Commissioner, informing him that it is my intention to lay the matter before the Society of Authors and the most distinguished novelists of the day, whose advice I am ready to take. I am therefore sending you a copy of the book in the hope that you will find time to read it in the course of the next few days and let me know your opinion, and I shall certainly be guided by the consensus of opinion.

I am,

Yours very truly,

John Lane.

PS.--May I suggest that this is a question for the consideration of the Council of the Society of Authors?

London, W.,

December 10th, 1910.

Dear Sir,

Yesterday morning I received a call from two inspectors from the Criminal Investigation Department, who stated that complaint had been made about Hermann Sudermann's "The Song of Songs," which was described as "an obscene book." The police declined to express any opinion of their own, but warned me of what had occurred.

I immediately wrote and thanked the Chief Commissioner for his courtesy. I then wrote letters to the principal novelists of the day, asking their advice, for I could not myself sit in judgment upon one of Europe's greatest writers. In the meantime I have withdrawn the book from circulation.

It is only fair that I should put the trade in the possession of all the facts of the case. I took the book in good faith. I had seen that it was for months the best-selling book in America, the most puritanical of all countries. I should just as soon have thought of changing the text of Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Meredith, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Maurice Hewlett, and Mr. George Moore. I must give the trade the option of returning the book.

John Lane.

7, Chilworth Street,

Paddington, W.

December 14th, 1910.

Dear Mr. Lane,

The book is very outspoken and occasionally nasty, but I shouldn't call it obscene, and the reputation of the author is your justification for publishing it. Personally, I think the first half brilliant and the last half tedious and unpleasant. A great many authors not nearly so famous as Sudermann could write a somewhat bald catalogue or series of risqué episodes. It is a book, in my opinion, for the student of literature and the mature, certainly not for the young person; but the student, I take it, would be able to read it in the original.

I am,

Yours sincerely,

Lucy Clifford.

Windlesham,

Crowborough,

Sussex.

Dear Sir,

Many thanks. I read the book with great interest. To say it is ever "obscene" is an abuse of words. That there are passages which are coarse, and unnecessarily coarse, is on the other hand indisputable. I should not like any woman under forty to read it. And yet it is not written for the purpose of being coarse, and that is the essential point.

Yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

Max Gate,

Dorchester.

December 15th, 1910.

Dear Mr. Lane,

I am sorry to hear that you have been laid up with bronchitis, and hope that you are on the way to health again.

I finished reading last night the translation of Sudermann's novel, "Das hohe Lied," that you sent me a few days back. I am not in a position to advise positively whether or not you should withdraw it, but I think that, viewing it as a practical question merely, which I imagine to be your wish, I should myself withdraw it in the circumstances.

A translation of good literary taste might possibly have made such an unflinching study of a woman's character acceptable in this country, even though the character is one of a somewhat ignoble type, but unfortunately, rendered into the rawest American, the claims that the original (which I have not seen) no doubt had to be considered as literature, are largely reduced, so that I question if there is value enough left in this particular translation to make a stand for.

Believe me,

Yours very truly,

John Lane, Esq., Thomas Hardy.

The Bodley Head.

3, Fitzjohn's Mansions,

Netherhall Gardens,

Hampstead, N.W.

December 17th.

Dear Sir,

Many thanks for your letter and the copy of "The Song of Songs."

I read the book carefully several months ago. I consider it to be a most wonderful book, and should deeply regret to see the work of so great a master as Sudermann suppressed in England. It is an absorbing psychological and physical study; and I see nothing obscene in its frank presentment of a woman's life, given over, it is true, to passion, and yet with a thread of finer aspiration clearly and continuously to be traced throughout the course of her career.

I am,

Yours very truly,

Beatrice Harraden.

17, Stratton Street, W.

My Dear Lane,

I have now read the "Song of Songs." The translation is obviously an undistinguished piece of work; and possibly it adds here and there a coarseness which the original book is without. As to that I cannot speak. Herr Sudermann is no doubt outspoken to the point of brutality, but with his theme brutality is the better way. Pruriency is the bad way; and with that he has never had anything to do. That the "Song of Songs" might offend some people I can understand. That it would do any harm I cannot.

Yours very sincerely,

A. E. W. Mason.

Riviera Palace Hotel,

Monte Carlo.

December 30th, 1910.

Dear John Lane,

Please pardon the delay. I've been seedy, and have not written a single letter for ten days. I'm all right again, and am sending to tell you briefly what I think of "The Song of Songs."

I can see no reason why it should be banned, tho' to my mind it is lacking in the essentials of that Art which makes all things possible if not expedient. There is no real tragedy in the life of a born prostitute such as Lilly was, and certainly there is no comedy. There was never for an instant a problem for her to solve, and all the effort to present a struggle is vain and empty. She went her accustomed course like the fly-away she was, and that is what the book shows with very remarkable photography and in a light which reaches into every corner. It isn't a sweet book, but Salome isn't a sweet drama, and to attempt to ban the one and let the other go is sheer stupidity and crass prejudice. One divorce case in the grimy Weeklies is more lurid and pornographic to the impressionable eye than all this book of masterly observation and graphic literature. The Public must set the standard, not the Censor, and as one of the Public I resent any attempt to regulate my diet.

Yours truly,

Gilbert Parker.

Torquay.

December 22nd, 1910.

Dear John Lane,

I have read Sudermann's "Das hohe Lied" very carefully, and if I were inclined to be flippant should say the only things obscene therein were the Americanisms of this translation.

But in truth there is more to be said.

I consider that in spirit the book is not obscene, but inasmuch as many of the characters are obscene, because the artist has been making a study of certain obscene-minded human beings, then it follows that, as a true artist, he has created an atmosphere of obscenity for those persons to move and breathe in. You do not ask for a criticism of the book, and I should not presume to offer it if you did (being happily without the least itch ever to criticise anything or anybody); but upon the one point where you invite opinion I would say the book is obscene, as it was artistically bound to be, because it offers a picture of an obscene corner of society--a society entirely preoccupied with the sexual man and woman hunt. It is not obscene in the sense that many lesser novels written in all countries are obscene.

I hope that I make the distinction clear as it exists in my mind.

Very faithfully yours,

Eden Phillpotts.

10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C.

December 20th, 1910.

Dear John Lane,

At your request I have read the American translation of Hermann Sudermann's "Song of Songs." There is no reason why you should not publish it except the risk that you may be prosecuted. But as it is impossible for an English publisher to conduct his business without running that risk daily, I presume you will not allow it to deter you.

The book is a fictitious biography of a femme galante. It is not the sort of book that is given as a prize in a girl's school, though I am by no means sure that it would not be more useful than many of the books that are put to that use. It says what ought to be said about its heroine without any of the sentimental lasciviousness and avoidance of the unpleasant side of clandestine gallantry which makes most of our novels so dangerous to young people. Sudermann is blunt, frank, and contemptuous, where the English hack-writer would be furtive, inferential, discreet, and superficially decent. He strips the romance off Bohemianism ruthlessly, and takes care that if you are curious about the sort of life that is open to a woman who has lost her position in respectable society in Berlin, you shall know the truth about it. Not that he attaches any false consequences to it for the sake of an edifying moral. His heroine does not starve, does not jump over the bridge, and fares better than most ugly, honest, and hard-working women as far as her circumstances are concerned. She is left at the end of the book in a position which many respectable English families would be very glad to see their daughters in. The author makes no attempt to flatter society by denying or hiding the fact that immorality pays a penniless girl who is pretty and amiable better than morality, and that it even leaves her a better chance of being married than the drudgeries and disfigurements of singing The Song of the Shirt. But that it damages her soul cruelly and incurably he brings out mercilessly. He deliberately leads you into all sorts of foolish sentimental sympathies with her, only in the end to bring you the harder up against Dr. Johnson's opinion of her. She is left, as such women often are left, with an adoring husband, a luxurious income, and everything the most virtuous heroine could ask from British fiction, but hopelessly damned all the same. You need not fear that anyone who reads the book will envy her or be tempted to go and do likewise. It is worth adding that what began the mischief with her was having nothing readable within her reach except popular novels which made everything that tempted her seem poetic and delightful and honorable, and were therefore not suppressed by the censorship.

You will understand from the above account why you have been threatened with censorial proceedings for proposing to publish this novel. Instead of baiting the trap, it shows it to you shut, with the victim inside. That, our library censors and their dupes will say, is disgusting. Precisely. Do they ask Sudermann to make it attractive? The attraction of the book lies in the interest of the picture it gives of the phase of contemporary society with which it deals. It is full of vivid character-sketches which not only amuse us as we read but give us a whole social atmosphere to reflect on. If the reflections are bitter and even terrifying, serve us right: it is not Sudermann's business to keep us in a fool's paradise. The suppression of this book would not only be a deliberate protection of vice--which is always best served by turning off the light--but the reduction of every English adult to the condition of a child under tutelage. But even if the book were as false and mischievous as any of the romances which make the same theme agreeable and seductive I should object to its suppression all the same. No harm that the worst book could possibly do even if people could be forced to read it against their wills could be as great as the intellectual suffocation of the whole nation which a censorship effects. If Germany may read Sudermann and we may not, then the free adult German man will presently upset the Englishman's perambulator and leave him to console himself as best he may with the spotlessness of his pinafore.

Yours faithfully,

John Lane, Esq. G. Bernard Shaw.

The Bodley Head,

Vigo Street, W.

4, Edwardes Square Studios, W.

December 13th, 1910.

Dear Mr. Lane,

I've waited before writing to you till I had finished "The Song of Songs."

I have read every word of it carefully, and I think it would be a national disgrace if so fine a work of so great a master were suppressed.

The book is powerful and sincere and absolutely moral in tendency and intention. Of course it is a terrible subject and there are bound to be terrible things in it, things that I, personally, dislike extremely; but I see that none of these things are insisted on for their own sake. None are unnecessary, except, possibly, the violent scene in Kellermann's studio, and that would not really do anybody any harm.

Judging the book as it ought to be judged--by tendency and intention--I cannot find anything in it to which the adjective used by the complainant could apply. It is a long and elaborate work, and the "terrible things" are comparatively few and far between. They offend my taste, but not my moral sense--that remains appeased by the tragedy of it all, as in "real life."

I would even say that from the point of view of morals and the portentous young girl, the book should do good, should act as a deterrent by its ruthless analysis of "Schwärmerei," by showing where it leads and what it is stripped of its dangerous glamour.

Altogether I see nothing to justify complaint. As for criminal prosecution--we are ridiculous enough, as it is, in the eyes of our neighbours!

Faithfully yours,

May Sinclair.

17, Church Row,

Hampstead.

My Dear Lane,

I have read "The Song of Songs" very carefully. I find it unsympathetic work; there is a harshness and hardness about Sudermann's effects that I do not like and that reminds me of the exaggeration of wrinkles and blemishes one finds in over-focussed photographs. None the less it is a very sincere and able piece of literature, and I cannot understand anyone who is not suffering from some sort of inverted sexual mania wanting to suppress it. It deals with sexual facts very plainly but without a suspicion of pornographic intention, it presents vicious tendencies and their indulgence in an extremely deterrent way, and I cannot imagine anyone not already hopelessly corrupted who could gain any sexual excitement from reading it.

Yours very sincerely,

H. G. Wells.

Exeter.

Dear Mr. Lane,

The morality of a novel depends upon three points:--(1) Subject; (2) Purpose; (3) Treatment as to detail.

(1). The subject of "The Song of Songs" is that of a girl ruined by an old roué and then bandied about from man to man till every trace of soul is gone. She has no existence apart from the lowest passion. The book is a tremendous indictment of the idea, only now beginning to disappear, that a woman should live for the sole purpose of gratifying a man sexually--whether in marriage or otherwise.

(2). In aim it is certainly not impure in the sense that it paints a career of vice as alluring. The girl is living in hell and is at times aware of it. The sordid misery of her life is there, though--and here Sudermann differs from English--writers she never becomes an outcast physically. She has always a certain well-being and even beauty. The ruin and destruction wrought is of brain and soul, a much more terrible matter.

(3). In treatment as to detail the book stands condemned; the pictures given are not only revolting, but painted with entirely unnecessary fulness. There is a cruel gusto, for instance, that places the book on a far lower level of morality than "Madame Bovary." The thought of the novel is feeble compared with its physical atmosphere. But in the matter of detail, on the whole the difference between English fiction and all continental work is one purely of fashion. Our people in English novels sin vaguely: in continental novels they sin garishly. It is the difference between a dream and a cinematograph. But for the law to interfere in England with books touching on vice is supremely ridiculous, since our law, framed entirely for man's convenience and not at all for woman's protection, is one of the greatest means by which vice itself is kept flourishing. The farce of police supervision and the insults of the English law sin against morality fifty times more powerfully than any of Sudermann's novels.

My opinion is that all sane, healthy-minded women ought to read novels like this, because they ought to know the truth, the entirely accursed truth about these things. For the ignorance of women is the chief reason why other women like the heroine of "The Song of Songs" are left to rot in body and mind. It is to men that such books are injurious, for they are so written that the vicious details strike their eye first, and the cruel pleasure taken in them would appeal to the worst in men. It is only women and somewhat exceptional men who would see the horror of degradation that Sudermann depicts the heroine as enduring. It is hell to a woman, but to the average stupid man it would simply appear amusing.

Such books should be labelled "For Women Only." There are comparatively few naturally vicious women, and these "The Song of Songs" won't injure, for they are beyond that. The others will be benefited by its knowledge. As to whether this book should have been published, I think it is six to one and half a dozen to the other: you will enlighten women; you may possibly injure some young men. But at the present moment the essential thing is that women should have their eyes opened. That is, indeed, the task of this century; the next will see the results of it--good ones, I firmly believe.

M. P. Willcocks.

Far End,

East Preston,

Sussex.

December 12th, 1910.

Dear Lane,

I am very sorry to hear of your illness and of the trouble that the police may give you. Unfortunately, I am far too busy at present to spare time to read a book of 640 pages, and unless one read it all one might miss the impugned passages or the other passages which justify them. I readily, however, corroborate your view--although no corroboration is needed--that the high position of Sudermann in European literature must raise any work of his far above the plane of police interference. His motives are sure to be ethical, and he must not for a moment be confounded with those mercenary scribblers who spice their wares for the market. Indeed, if I were a publisher, I would never even read an MS. of Sudermann's beforehand. I should put it into the hands of the printers in blind faith, as no doubt you have done.

With best wishes for your rapid recovery.

Yours sincerely,

Israel Zangwill.

It will be seen that although the consensus of opinion was in favour of the circulation of the book, yet there was a very strong objection to the translation. I therefore wrote to Herr Sudermann as follows, at the same time sending him copies of the correspondence--

To Hermann Sudermann, Esq.,

Berlin.

The Bodley Head,

London, W.

February 8th, 1911.

Dear Sir,

You will probably have heard that I have had difficulties over the publication of "Das hohe Lied," which was translated by an American for Mr. Huebsch, the New York publisher who has the translation rights of your book, and from whom I bought it in sheet form for the British market.

On December 9th, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, sent two of his representatives to my office, informing my manager, in my absence through illness, that serious complaints had been lodged against the book as being obscene. I immediately wrote letters to Sir Melville Macnaghten, to the Incorporated Society of British Authors, and to our leading novelists; and I am sending you copies of the correspondence, as I am sure that many of the replies will give you great pleasure. I had, however, no satisfactory answer from the Society of Authors, although one would suppose it the duty of a properly constituted society of that nature to defend or at any rate support your case. Had I had the least support from them I should have defended your position with an assurance of victory for the book, but as the matter stood I did not feel justified in allowing your artistic reputation to be at the mercy of a British judge and jury. The verdict might have been an insult to literature. In any case the position would have been most undignified for an author of your eminence.

The failure of the Authors' Society to take up your case must not be confused with the opinions of our leading novelists, for I should explain at once that the only qualifications for membership are the publication of any book or even pamphlet and, of course, the subscription of twenty-one shillings per annum. It is not therefore a society of any distinction, though it happens to include among its thousands of members most of the eminent writers of the day.

Our most distinguished realist novelist, Mr. George Moore, in writing to the president of the Society on this occasion, says--

"I once belonged to the Society of Authors, but I seceded from it because it seemed to me to have entirely dissociated itself from literary interests; but I do think that the opportunity has come at last for the Society of Authors to justify its existence. A better opportunity than Sudermann's book will not be found."

After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that all interests would be best served if you could obtain permission from Mr. Huebsch for me to have the book retranslated by Miss Beatrice Marshall, whose versions of "Der Katzensteg," "Es War," and "Der Täufer" met with your entire approval. The present translation is fraught with Americanisms and has been made without due regard to the genius of the two languages and the prejudices inherent in the English character.

I feel bound to give you all these particulars so that you may appreciate my reasons for withdrawing the book in a manner least calculated to do harm, and for appealing to you now for help to place the book before the English public in a form which will be acceptable to your numerous friends and admirers in this country.

Yours very truly,

John Lane.

His reply was as follows--

Mr. John Lane,

Publisher,

Vigo Street, London, W.

Dear Sir,

Please accept my sincerest thanks for your kind letter and your detailed account of the suppression of my novel "The Song of Songs" (Das hohe Lied). Naturally I can only look forward with pleasure to the possibility that this work, to which I have devoted years of unwearied artistic care, should not be lost to England, and so I gladly follow your advice to persuade Mr. Huebsch, the American publisher, by my own personal intervention to resign the English rights to you. I have at the same time written to him, and I enclose a copy of this letter for your kind consideration.

That I am heartily grateful to my English colleagues for their kind sympathy requires no assurance on my part, but I beg you, dear sir, when you meet one or the other of them to convey to each my feeling of deep appreciation.

In conclusion, permit me to hope, dear sir, that your health, which at the time you wrote was not good, has been completely restored.

With expressions of my highest esteem for your services in this matter.

Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

Hermann Sudermann.

In conclusion, I had better say that on receiving Herr Sudermann's reply and from Mr. Huebsch his consent, I entered into negotiations with Miss Beatrice Marshall for a new translation of the book, which is now offered to the public with every confidence that it will meet with a wide and enthusiastic reception. I should like too to add my thanks to the various writers who responded to my circular letter with such readiness and sympathy.

John Lane.

The Bodley Head,

Vigo Street, London

1st May, 1913.