Girls Lean Back Everywhere

A remarkable tour de force of literary/legal sleuthing, this massive chronicle of the conflict between artistic expression and censorship covers a vast terrain, from the burning of Zola's novels and the imprisonment of his English publisher, Henry Vizetelly, to the controversies over Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs and rap group 2 Live Crew's record album. De Grazia, a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York City, who successfully argued the Tropic of Cancer case before the Supreme Court, focuses on writers, publishers and booksellers who stuck their necks out. Through a lively account of the trials and tribulations of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Radclyffe Hall, Theodore Dreiser, Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce and others, he demonstrates how interference with creativity by prosecutors, police and judges violates First Amendment freedoms. De Grazia anchors his arguments in legal scholarship. (Apr.)