“In 1951, Grove Press was a tiny, almost-defunct independent publisher, with just three titles in its catalog, including Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man. But then Barney Rosset took over and, with a few choice books, helped push America past its Puritanical roots and into the sexual revolution. He died in 2012 and we are re-airing this interview I did with him many years back, to set up this week’s show in which we’ll be trying to unpack the latest round of book banning in America. ”

Barnet Lee “Barney” Rosset, Jr. (1922 – 2012) was owner of Grove Press publishing house and publisher and editor-in-chief at the Evergreen Review. He led a successful legal battle to publish the uncensored version of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and later was the American publisher of Henry Miller’s controversial novel Tropic of Cancer. The right to publish and distribute Miller’s novel in the United States was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1964, in a landmark ruling for free speech and the First Amendment. Under Rosset  Grove introduced American readers to European avant-garde literature and theatre, publishing, among others, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Genet, and Eugène Ionesco. Most importantly, in 1954, Grove started publishing Samuel Beckett.

John Oakes is the co-founder and 50% owner of OR Books, and publisher of the Evergreen Review, an online revival of the venerable counter-cultural literary magazine originally published by Grove Press under Barney Rosset, whose memoir Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship OR Books published in 2017.

It’s difficult to encapsulate the life of such a driven man. He had ideas all day long and he brought many of them to pass [in books], theatre, film. One could write a book on just those two aspects of his existence. He shook up the cosy world of American publishing, made some enemies, made some friends. Curiously he has some admiration for the French renegade publisher Maurice Girodias, a man he had many dealings with. It pointed to his own maverick heart. Essential reading for any observer of the scene.

To read more, pick up a copy of Beat Scene.

“When Rosset was growing up in Chicago under the Hoover administration, John Dillinger was a hero of his – much like the Russian Communists. In fact, Rosset and some of his classmates petitioned the government to replace President Hoover with Dillinger. Rosset’s family lived close to the movie theatre where Dillinger was shot and killed by the FBI. This was not Rosset’s closest brush with the Bureau, which would investigate him thoroughly, all the way back to his school years.”

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Video here.

No “serious student of American culture from the post-World War II era right up into the 1970s” ever doubted “that were it not for the indefatigable Rosset, our lives would be very different. That one person fundamentally reshaped the way we think, perhaps more than any other, in the modern era: he unleashed upon us “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,’ the intellectual puzzles of Beckett, Genet, Pinter, Oe, Robbe-Grillet, Ionesco and Stoppard; The ‘Tropics’ of Miller, the outrages of Burroughs and Rechy and so much more … that is the last century, the idea of ‘normal’ sexuality has changed owes not a little to Rosset’s exploration of such concepts.”

And that’s not all. Once language was liberated, and ideas along with it, along came the “liberation” of almost everything else we now take for granted.

For Rosset, says Oakes, “every book was a battle and he was the pirate exhorting his crew to slaughter. In fact, the list of censorship obstacles overcome by Grove Press under his tenure is so extensive it might be argued that the company was more likely to publish a book because it was ‘forbidden.’ ”

Read the full piece here.

Rosset worked closely with international publishers, such as John Calder in London and Maurice Girodias in Paris. Sylvia Beach, owner of Shakespeare and Co., introduced him to Samuel Beckett. His unswerving dedication to publishing what he wanted combined with great critical awareness and a wide internationalism saw him publish Artaud, Behan, Genet, Ionesco, Lorca, Neruda, Paz, Pinter in the early years, and subsequently Brecht, Orton, Borges, Stoppard, Kenaburō Ōe, Havel, Mamet, and much more Beckett. He emerges as an impatient, unpredictable, passionate, spiky and intractable figure with a feverish desire to challenge accepted views and authorises. This is an inspiring account of a difficult figure, shows the importance of alternative publishing, and will surely be the basis for subsequent biographies and feature in critical studies of those he published.

Read the full piece here.

A new memoir, “Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship” (OR Books), is the work of several hands. Rosset had planned an autobiography, and he enlisted many helpers, but he was never satisfied, and, when he died, in 2012, the book was unfinished. The editors have managed to pull together a memoir using material in Rosset’s papers, and have produced a book that has the charm and some of the truculence of the man himself.

Rosset’s first great accomplishment after acquiring Grove was to become Beckett’s American publisher. Beckett was an elusive and problematic prize. He lived in Paris; he wrote in French; and he was fanatical about the integrity of his art. There are differing accounts of how Rosset heard about Beckett, but it’s undisputed that when they met, in Paris, they hit it off. Maybe it was the Irish ancestry. But it was sound business sense. Rosset recognized Beckett’s potential at a time when he was barely a coterie author. He must also have realized that he had a melodramatically self-abnegating prima donna on his hands, and he patiently walked Beckett through the steps necessary for his books to be published in the United States, starting with persuading him to translate them into English himself, which Beckett did only after making a tremendous fuss.

Read the full article here.

“One of the actors was Hervé Villechaize, who became quite famous later when he appeared on the TV show Fantasy Island. One night, after the film crew had left my house, my mother-in-law stepped outside and came back screaming, “There’s a midget in the pool!” And there was Hervé floating on his back, unconscious. My wife Cristina and I fished him out, placed him on the side, and raced to Bridgehampton, where Norman was, and said “Go get your midget!” And he did, and took Hervé to get his stomach pumped.”

Read the full article here.

“How is the finished product? Rosset has many riveting passages, and will certainly be required reading for anyone interested in postwar American publishing.”

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Publishers Weekly reviews Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship.

“Rosset’s life and career are essential parts of American literary history, and being able to read the story in his own glittering prose is invaluable..”

Read the full review on Publishers Weekly here.