30 JANUARY 1959, Page 7

of Edipus Rex and 'Tis Pity 'She's a Whore and

Pericles and The Cenci. None of these pre- sumably would have reached the printer if he had been our arbiter. As for ballyhoo, it is Mr. Woodruff's friends who are whipping up the mob and attempting to padlock the presses. Only four or five years ago, there was published in this country a novel called. Cassandra which dealt with incest and very little else. Owing to the book- burners' ignorance of the publishers' book lists of the time, it was never denounced and created no stir. I suppose Mr. Woodruff would say that this was permissible, because it was not 'a great novel.' But if it had been 'a great novel,' he would have banned it. This is the reductio ad absurdum of his anti-Lolita case.