MR. WOODRUFF asks if I had forgotten that a distributor
of Lolita was found guilty of publish- ing an obscene libel in 1956. I had-not forgotten, but am unable to see how those prosecutions are relevant. Mr. Woodruff can hardly suggest that those proceedings were a proper trial of the book. He says, too, that 'the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in his memorandum to the Select. Committee put Lolita first in the list of what he called "the usually quite disgusting" publica- tions of the Olympia Press of Paris.' It is a pity that Mr. Woodruff did not also quote the Com- missioner's evidence to the Committee. He said : 'I am told that every one on this list except Lolita is of the really filthy category and has no artistic merit.' But even if Mr. Woodruff had correctly represented the Commissioner's opinion of Lolita, I would strongly differ from him in thinking that opinion important. Does he really think the police the best or even good judges of literature? I don't. If Mr. Woodruff would give up thinking in abstractions he would see that the issue is riot between 'the Law' and 'literary merit.' It is whether the legal employees of the Crown, when deciding whether or not to prosecute a book, should prefer the opinion of policemen and philis- tines, to the opinion of knowledgeable and en- lightened literary critics. I am sorry that Mr. Woodruff should have lined himself up with the policemen.
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