0:00:02 > 0:00:10This programme contains very strong language and scenes of a sexual nature from the start.
0:00:12 > 0:00:17In 1934, a book was published that would go on to cause social outrage
0:00:17 > 0:00:19and legal controversy.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23It would shock its readers with its blunt, explicit language
0:00:23 > 0:00:25and its graphic portrayal of sex.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27It would say...
0:00:27 > 0:00:28the unsayable.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32The book was this one.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38And here is an extract from the very first chapter.
0:00:40 > 0:00:45"Oh, Tanya. Where, now, is that warm cunt of yours?
0:00:45 > 0:00:50"Those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54"There is a bone in my prick six inches long.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58"I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tanya,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00"big with seed.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04"I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly
0:01:04 > 0:01:06"and your womb turned inside out.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10"Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12"but I know how to inflame a cunt."
0:01:16 > 0:01:17Strong stuff.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21And if you think that's shocking today,
0:01:21 > 0:01:25imagine the effect it had more than 80 years ago.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30It's one of the most influential novels of the 20th century,
0:01:30 > 0:01:32and Miller's unflinching prose
0:01:32 > 0:01:34sent shock waves throughout the literary world.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40But in 1934, a book using such language was unprintable
0:01:40 > 0:01:42in London or New York.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45Instead, it was published in Paris
0:01:45 > 0:01:50by a short-sighted dandy from Manchester called Jack Kahane.
0:01:51 > 0:01:55Paris, between the wars, was a city teeming with highbrows and lowlifes,
0:01:55 > 0:01:58crooks and contessas, junkies and jazz men.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00And writers.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03Lots and lots of writers.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06And into this world wandered Kahane,
0:02:06 > 0:02:08a failed playwright, a failed novelist,
0:02:08 > 0:02:10a lover of great literature
0:02:10 > 0:02:13and a shrewd businessman who knew that sex sells,
0:02:13 > 0:02:16and who wasn't averse to selling dirty books
0:02:16 > 0:02:19alongside some of the 20th century's most important works of literature.
0:02:19 > 0:02:24This is the story of a man whom I believe to be one of the most
0:02:24 > 0:02:26important and unlikely figures
0:02:26 > 0:02:29in the history of literary censorship.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44My name is Neil Pearson.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46I'm mostly an actor, but for many years,
0:02:46 > 0:02:48I've been interested in antiquarian books.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50I collect them, I deal in them,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54and I love what they tell us about our literary history.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59And one publishing house in particular has always fascinated me.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01The Obelisk Press.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05It was founded by Jack Kahane.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07Born in Manchester in 1887
0:03:07 > 0:03:11to a prosperous Romanian Jewish textile family,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14Kahane fell in love with music and theatre from an early age.
0:03:14 > 0:03:19He spent his adolescent years actively promoting his home city
0:03:19 > 0:03:22as a hub of literary and musical culture,
0:03:22 > 0:03:24and promoting himself as a young man about town,
0:03:24 > 0:03:28challenging authorities, setting up cultural societies,
0:03:28 > 0:03:31and trying his hand at playwriting.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34But Kahane's especial love of French culture
0:03:34 > 0:03:36lit a passion for the country itself,
0:03:36 > 0:03:42and in 1914, the very existence of France was under threat.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Full of the sort of boyish idealism that was likely to get you killed,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53Kahane was desperate to see front-line action.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58In 1916, he got his wish, somewhere out there,
0:03:58 > 0:04:00on the killing fields of the Great War.
0:04:03 > 0:04:08At Ypres, he was gassed, then badly wounded by an exploding shell.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10He spent several months in a military hospital,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12the rest of the war behind the front line,
0:04:12 > 0:04:14and the rest of his life dealing with
0:04:14 > 0:04:18the permanent effect on his physical and mental health.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21But amid all the carnage, one good thing happened.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Towards the end of the war, he married Marcelle Girodias,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29the French daughter of a wealthy railway engineer.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33For the rest of his life, Kahane's adopted country
0:04:33 > 0:04:34would be his permanent home.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37And for a would-be writer and bohemian
0:04:37 > 0:04:40at the dawn of the roaring '20s,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43Paris was definitely the place to be.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47If a cabbie in a time machine
0:04:47 > 0:04:50ever pulled up alongside me and said, "Where to?",
0:04:50 > 0:04:52I wouldn't have to think very long.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57IN FRENCH:
0:05:02 > 0:05:04After the carnage of the Great War,
0:05:04 > 0:05:06young people were looking to forget,
0:05:06 > 0:05:11and thousands upon thousands of them chose to forget in Paris.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13The exchange rate was fantastic,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15accommodation was plentiful and cheap,
0:05:15 > 0:05:17and everything a young person needs
0:05:17 > 0:05:20for a good time was readily available.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24They didn't just come to forget.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28Many came to write. Paris was the literary epicentre
0:05:28 > 0:05:30of a new movement, modernism,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34which was embracing freedom and experimentation.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37This was the world of Gertrude Stein
0:05:37 > 0:05:39and Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce,
0:05:39 > 0:05:42and like moths to a flame,
0:05:42 > 0:05:43they were all drawn here,
0:05:43 > 0:05:46to the Boulevard Du Montparnasse.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49Writer and historian John Baxter
0:05:49 > 0:05:54is an expert on the city's more disreputable past.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56So, John, it's a Saturday night,
0:05:56 > 0:05:59and here we are in Montparnasse in the mid-1920s.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01Paint the picture for me.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05OK, we're at the very crossroads of bohemian Paris.
0:06:05 > 0:06:07In the Rotonde Cafe here,
0:06:07 > 0:06:09the Spaniards would be carousing.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11There'd be Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Here in the Select, every drunk prostitute, pickpocket and
0:06:15 > 0:06:20general layabout would be looking for a way to make some money.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23And over here in the Coupole,
0:06:23 > 0:06:25the Americans would be flooding in,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29looking for a tremendous night, which would begin with cocktails
0:06:29 > 0:06:34and end at 4am with them dancing in the dance hall underneath,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37so everybody was having a great time.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39This was like Soho in the 1890s,
0:06:39 > 0:06:42like Greenwich Village in the 1950s.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45If you were young and you wanted to be where it was happening,
0:06:45 > 0:06:48this was where it was happening.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52Paris in the 1920s was the crossroads at which
0:06:52 > 0:06:56all the arts met, cross-pollinated and experimented.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58And for an aspiring writer like Jack Kahane,
0:06:58 > 0:07:01his adopted city provided a literary freedom
0:07:01 > 0:07:04that couldn't be found back home.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06In Britain and the United States,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10this was still an extremely restrictive time to be a writer.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13As far as the authorities were concerned, it was the writer's job
0:07:13 > 0:07:15to reflect the values of his country,
0:07:15 > 0:07:17not challenge them.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20Publishers were regularly taken to court,
0:07:20 > 0:07:24and books which seemed innocuous even by the standards of the day
0:07:24 > 0:07:28could be prosecuted for obscenity, blasphemy,
0:07:28 > 0:07:32promoting immorality, sometimes all three.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35But on this side of the Channel, things were different.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39In 1922, a book which was unprintable
0:07:39 > 0:07:41both in the US and the UK
0:07:41 > 0:07:45was published here in Paris, and the way it was published
0:07:45 > 0:07:48would later have a profound effect on Jack Kahane.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55The book was Ulysses, by James Joyce.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59In 1920, excerpts from the unpublished novel appeared in
0:07:59 > 0:08:03an American magazine, which was promptly prosecuted.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05A masterpiece it may have been,
0:08:05 > 0:08:09but it was still unprintable on either side of the Atlantic.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17It's impossible to find a passage in Ulysses
0:08:17 > 0:08:20which is obviously offensive.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23But that didn't stop the censors trying.
0:08:23 > 0:08:28However obliquely, Joyce was writing about masturbation and casual sex,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30and that was enough to get him prosecuted.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33In France, the obscenity laws were as stringent as they were
0:08:33 > 0:08:37anywhere else, but there was an important loophole.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40They were only ever used against work published in French.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43If you published in English, in Paris,
0:08:43 > 0:08:45you could publish pretty much what you wanted,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48and as long as you didn't sent the books abroad...
0:08:49 > 0:08:50..you wouldn't be prosecuted.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55In 1922, the owner of a small bookshop in Paris decided to
0:08:55 > 0:08:57use this loophole to publish
0:08:57 > 0:09:00one of the greatest books of the 20th century.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Her name was Sylvia Beach,
0:09:03 > 0:09:07and the bookshop was called Shakespeare And Company.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09At the beginning of the 1920s,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12Beach's shop was here on the rue de l'Odeon
0:09:12 > 0:09:15and it quickly became the headquarters
0:09:15 > 0:09:17of Paris' English-speaking literary community.
0:09:18 > 0:09:23With Ulysses, it had also become the city's most daring publishing house.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27And where Beach led, many other young publishers quickly followed,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30printing books unpublishable anywhere else.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33A literary party had begun.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37But poor Jack Kahane wasn't around to get his invitation.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40So where was he?
0:09:40 > 0:09:42The family's archives contain
0:09:42 > 0:09:45a treasure trove of photos from this time,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47and amongst the pictures of Jack and Marcelle,
0:09:47 > 0:09:49there are a few which explain his
0:09:49 > 0:09:52temporary exile from the city of light.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57In the early 1920s, Kahane's health had deteriorated.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59The war had left him with only one lung,
0:09:59 > 0:10:01and in 1919,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04he was diagnosed with tuberculosis,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06at that time an incurable disease.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11He was sent to a sanatorium in sleepy, rural France,
0:10:11 > 0:10:13a long way from the bright lights of Paris.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17And while the rest of the world was getting to know James Joyce,
0:10:17 > 0:10:21he was becoming addicted to a very different kind of fiction.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24He became addicted to
0:10:24 > 0:10:25light French novels.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29Very light French novels,
0:10:29 > 0:10:30like this one.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35The books' plots were virtually interchangeable.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37They all featured pretty young girls,
0:10:37 > 0:10:39their fearsome mothers
0:10:39 > 0:10:41and handsome but disreputable young men,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44chasing each other through country houses and nightclubs.
0:10:48 > 0:10:49So far, so PG Wodehouse,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52but these books had an added ingredient.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54Sex.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57They weren't explicit, but they were saucy.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00A chapter would end with the lovers outside the bedroom door
0:11:00 > 0:11:04and the next chapter would begin with them happily sitting up in bed,
0:11:04 > 0:11:05having breakfast.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09Across the Channel, books had been banned for less.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13But Kahane saw a business opportunity.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17In the strait-laced, censorious world of the British literary scene,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20there was no equivalent to this kind of novel,
0:11:20 > 0:11:22so he wrote one of his own,
0:11:22 > 0:11:24Laugh And Grow Rich.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29The book is a frothy, mildly sexy romp about two young things in Paris
0:11:29 > 0:11:33and kept just the right side of what was permissible in the UK.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36Published in London in 1923,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39it was well reviewed and ran to three editions.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42For the first and only time in his life,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46the writer Jack Kahane was a hit.
0:11:46 > 0:11:47I particularly like...
0:11:47 > 0:11:49this bit here.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55"It was now half past ten, and taking down the telephone receiver,
0:11:55 > 0:11:57"I asked to be put through to her room.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00"After a few moments, she answered.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03"'Oh, is it you? How early you are.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06"'I've had to dash out of my bath to answer you.'
0:12:08 > 0:12:10"'I want to know if I may come and see you.'
0:12:10 > 0:12:12"'Not just yet, for I am standing here
0:12:12 > 0:12:14"'dressed simply in drops of water.'
0:12:15 > 0:12:20"I grunted. If a telephone were only a telescope as well."
0:12:22 > 0:12:26It wasn't Ulysses, but it wasn't meant to be.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29Kahane had finished the novel he'd set out to write.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32And people were buying it.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36But modest success wasn't enough.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40He wanted to be taken seriously. He wanted to be James Joyce.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43He tried his hand at more serious novels,
0:12:43 > 0:12:44all of which fell flat.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47By the late 1920s,
0:12:47 > 0:12:49he was forced to admit defeat.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52Jack Kahane, the writer, was dead in the water.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56If he wanted to be successful, he'd have to try something else.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01In 1929, he had an idea.
0:13:01 > 0:13:03He convinced his father-in-law
0:13:03 > 0:13:05to bankroll his stake in a publishing house
0:13:05 > 0:13:08that produced glossy editions de luxe,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11coffee-table art books in French and English
0:13:11 > 0:13:13that were much in vogue at that time.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18Kahane was finally ready to return to Paris,
0:13:18 > 0:13:20this time as a publisher.
0:13:20 > 0:13:21But, as usual,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23his timing was a little off.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27There have been better years to start a new business
0:13:27 > 0:13:29than the year of the Wall Street Crash.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32Wealthy young expatriates were wealthy no more,
0:13:32 > 0:13:34and headed for home.
0:13:34 > 0:13:39Paris emptied, and the market for English-language books collapsed.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41The party was over.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50So far, Kahane had relied on support from his wife's rich father,
0:13:50 > 0:13:53but with the family business in turmoil,
0:13:53 > 0:13:55that source of income was rapidly drying up.
0:13:56 > 0:14:01Kahane had a family to feed, and needed to make money - fast.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03Luckily, he had a plan.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06While Wall Street crashed,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09Kahane was closely following a scandal across the Channel,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13caused by a book which had been seized before publication.
0:14:14 > 0:14:15But they missed this copy.
0:14:15 > 0:14:18Sleeveless Errand by Norah James,
0:14:18 > 0:14:22a morbid story about a man and a woman who embark on a suicide pact.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29According to an influential 1868 ruling in the British courts,
0:14:29 > 0:14:33the test of obscenity was whether the material intends to
0:14:33 > 0:14:36"deprave and corrupt those whose
0:14:36 > 0:14:40"minds are open to such immoral influences".
0:14:42 > 0:14:46But it's hard to see this book as being likely to deprave or corrupt,
0:14:46 > 0:14:48even by the standards of 1929.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52Occasionally, someone will say "hell" or "bitch",
0:14:52 > 0:14:56but nothing stronger, and no-one has sex.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Kahane managed to get hold of his own copy,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05and when he read it he saw not so much a great novel
0:15:05 > 0:15:08as a fantastic opportunity.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10He was certain that the subject matter
0:15:10 > 0:15:12wouldn't raise an eyebrow in France,
0:15:12 > 0:15:14and he bought the rights off the UK publisher
0:15:14 > 0:15:16at a knock-down price.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21He printed his own edition here in Paris,
0:15:21 > 0:15:25and sold it to expatriates and English-speaking tourists
0:15:25 > 0:15:27eager to see what all the fuss was about.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30It carried this wrap-around band,
0:15:30 > 0:15:34cleverly proclaiming that this was the version which had been
0:15:34 > 0:15:36seized by the London police.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39It sold very well,
0:15:39 > 0:15:43and in 1931, Kahane bought out his business partner
0:15:43 > 0:15:45and founded a new publishing house
0:15:45 > 0:15:48based on this daring new business model.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50He called it...
0:15:50 > 0:15:51the Obelisk Press.
0:15:54 > 0:15:59The inspiration for the company's name and logo came from the obelisk
0:15:59 > 0:16:01here in the Place de la Concorde.
0:16:02 > 0:16:04Given what he would go on to publish,
0:16:04 > 0:16:06it's a suitably phallic symbol.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12Kahane hadn't gone into business to publish dirty books,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14but he wasn't stupid.
0:16:14 > 0:16:15Sex sells.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18He knew that the racier the novel, the quicker it would sell,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21and over the course of his publishing career,
0:16:21 > 0:16:24he certainly printed his fair share of smut.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28So, how saucy is saucy?
0:16:29 > 0:16:35Well, Kahane signed up a list of authors who would write memoirs
0:16:35 > 0:16:38and fiction of a saucy nature for him,
0:16:38 > 0:16:41among them N Reynolds Packard,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44who, when he wasn't filing copy for American newspapers,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47would write of his exploits across Europe
0:16:47 > 0:16:50as the Marco Polo of sex.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57And when the supply of racy novels threatened to dry up,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Kahane solved the problem by writing one himself,
0:17:00 > 0:17:02under a pseudonym. This...
0:17:03 > 0:17:06..is Gold And Silver by Henry Bridges,
0:17:06 > 0:17:08aka Jack Kahane.
0:17:08 > 0:17:14It's an everyday story of casual sex, cocaine and lesbianism
0:17:14 > 0:17:15on the Cote d'Azur.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20"Taking her in his arms, he put her on the bed,
0:17:20 > 0:17:24"where he began undressing her, awkwardly, hesitatingly,
0:17:24 > 0:17:28"embracing her as he took off every scrap of clothing.
0:17:28 > 0:17:30"His desire becoming ever greater,
0:17:30 > 0:17:33"it was short work to have her naked before him,
0:17:33 > 0:17:37"her beautiful body more beautiful than he had realised,
0:17:37 > 0:17:38"at his mercy.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42"Almost gloatingly, he allowed his hands to wander over her.
0:17:42 > 0:17:44"He began undressing.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47"'No!' exclaimed Madeline, 'I can't bear that.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49"'There's a dressing room over there.'"
0:17:51 > 0:17:53(Disappointing.)
0:17:53 > 0:17:57By today's standards, most of these titles are quite tame,
0:17:57 > 0:18:00end-of-the-pier smut rather than out-and-out porn.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04They may have paid the bills, but Kahane wanted to do more.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09He wanted to make a lasting contribution to literature,
0:18:09 > 0:18:10and so, alongside the smut,
0:18:10 > 0:18:14he reprinted notoriously banned books, such as...
0:18:16 > 0:18:18..Lady Chatterley's Lover, by DH Lawrence,
0:18:18 > 0:18:2224 years before it was legally available in the UK.
0:18:24 > 0:18:29And then in 1932, a brand-new manuscript landed on his desk,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32which would raise the stakes significantly.
0:18:36 > 0:18:37It was written by a middle-aged,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41unpublished American writer down on his luck.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44Like Kahane, Henry Miller had turned up late to the party,
0:18:44 > 0:18:49settling in Paris at a time when most expatriates were leaving.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53Miller, penniless and with absolutely no plan,
0:18:53 > 0:18:57threw himself into the seedy underbelly of Paris.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02And Paris rewarded him with the material for his first novel.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06Tropic Of Cancer is a seething picaresque,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09in which the city of Paris is as much character as setting.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12It's a Paris seen mostly at night,
0:19:12 > 0:19:14a Paris teeming with artists and writers,
0:19:14 > 0:19:17pimps and whores, highbrows and lowlifes.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19The book is a candid chronicle
0:19:19 > 0:19:22of Miller's life at the time he was writing it.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25Up to and including the sex.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28Lots and lots of sex.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Tropic Of Cancer was clearly unique, clearly brilliant,
0:19:34 > 0:19:36and clearly unpublishable.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Miller's literary agent, William Bradley,
0:19:39 > 0:19:41was convinced of the first two,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43but sent the manuscript to Jack Kahane anyway,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46hoping he would disagree with the third.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50Kahane read it in one sitting.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Later, he would call it the most terrible,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55the most sordid, the most magnificent manuscript
0:19:55 > 0:19:58that had ever fallen into his hands.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Kahane knew it was a masterpiece.
0:20:01 > 0:20:02But he also knew it was
0:20:02 > 0:20:06way more incendiary than anything he'd published so far.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10It would be the first real test of the censor's patience,
0:20:10 > 0:20:14a test that would put his entire business at risk.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17He decided it was a risk worth taking,
0:20:17 > 0:20:22and in 1934, he changed the course of literary history.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25OK, so, this...
0:20:28 > 0:20:32..is the first edition of Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35published by the Obelisk Press in Paris
0:20:35 > 0:20:37on the 1st of September, 1934.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40I think this is beautiful.
0:20:40 > 0:20:42Let me try to convince you.
0:20:42 > 0:20:43It's not pretty to look at.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45It's a little dogged, it's a little dowdy,
0:20:45 > 0:20:49and it's a badly made paperback.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53Also, the illustration is appalling.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57It was done by Maurice Kahane, Jack's then 14-year-old son,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59and it shows nothing so much as
0:20:59 > 0:21:02a complete misunderstanding of the book.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06It shows a great big crab - Cancer, get it?
0:21:06 > 0:21:13And in its pincers it holds a lifeless woman.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16It bears absolutely no relation to anything in the book.
0:21:16 > 0:21:17In monetary terms,
0:21:17 > 0:21:21this is probably worth now about £10,000.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26It was published in a limited edition of only 1,000 copies.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28Probably about half of those were read to death.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32Probably about half of those that remained were destroyed
0:21:32 > 0:21:34by customs or the postal service,
0:21:34 > 0:21:36and of those that remained,
0:21:36 > 0:21:38most are now in institutional libraries,
0:21:38 > 0:21:39which is where they should be,
0:21:39 > 0:21:41because they'll be preserved forever.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Before this copy existed,
0:21:44 > 0:21:46Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller
0:21:46 > 0:21:49didn't exist, except in Henry Miller's imagination.
0:21:49 > 0:21:51That makes it beautiful.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55And the fact that this is still here
0:21:55 > 0:21:56is more beautiful still.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01The first edition of Tropic Of Cancer
0:22:01 > 0:22:03is a powerfully evocative object.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05But it's much more than that.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08It kick-started a literary revolution.
0:22:09 > 0:22:11Andrew Hussey is a professor at
0:22:11 > 0:22:14the University of London's institute in Paris,
0:22:14 > 0:22:16and an expert on the work of Henry Miller.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20What was different about the style of
0:22:20 > 0:22:22Tropic Of Cancer that hadn't come before?
0:22:22 > 0:22:24If you go back to the 1930s,
0:22:24 > 0:22:27it's going to be very hard to find out how people spoke,
0:22:27 > 0:22:28whether in England or America,
0:22:28 > 0:22:31because literature doesn't recreate that properly.
0:22:31 > 0:22:32Joyce does, a little bit,
0:22:32 > 0:22:34but in a very different sort of way.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36The language of the streets is not something that writers do.
0:22:36 > 0:22:37But Miller does that.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40And Miller talks about the electric heat of the streets,
0:22:40 > 0:22:42and this is something that you can actually feel, you know,
0:22:42 > 0:22:45- through the text. - Can you show us an example of that?
0:22:45 > 0:22:48Um, if memory serves, I think on page 247.
0:22:48 > 0:22:50- I'm being very careful.- Yes.
0:22:50 > 0:22:51There you go.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56"On a damp winter's night, it's not necessary to look at a map
0:22:56 > 0:22:58"to discover the latitude of Paris.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01"It's a northern city, an outpost erected
0:23:01 > 0:23:04"over a swamp filled in with skulls and bones.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08"Out on the boulevards, there is a cold, electrical imitation of heat.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10"Tout Va Bien, in ultraviolet rays,
0:23:10 > 0:23:13"that make the clients of the Dupont chain cafes
0:23:13 > 0:23:14"look like gangrened cadavers.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17"Wherever there are lights, there is a little heat.
0:23:17 > 0:23:18"One gets warm from watching
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"the fat, secure bastards down their grogs,
0:23:21 > 0:23:23"their steaming black coffees.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27"Where the lights are, are people on the sidewalks, jostling one another,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30"giving off a little animal heat through their dirty underwear,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33"and their foul, cursing breaths."
0:23:33 > 0:23:36That's... You know, that is superb prose.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39What influence did Henry Miller have on literary movements,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43especially American literary movements that came after him?
0:23:43 > 0:23:45Well, he's kind of an influence on the Beat Generation,
0:23:45 > 0:23:47and I think that's certainly true,
0:23:47 > 0:23:49and the leaders of the Beat Generation,
0:23:49 > 0:23:51that's Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg,
0:23:51 > 0:23:52have certainly read Miller.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54What they took from Miller was a sensibility.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58A rebel sensibility, like an outsider kind of voice.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00But the prose doesn't match up.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03I think Miller is superior to all of them
0:24:03 > 0:24:05in lots of different ways, and in a way,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08I would jump over the Beat Generation
0:24:08 > 0:24:11and look at the voices in contemporary American literature.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14I'm thinking of people like David Foster Wallace with Infinite Jest.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18Miller didn't invent all of this, but, like all great artists,
0:24:18 > 0:24:20he gave a voice to what needed to be done.
0:24:26 > 0:24:32At last, Obelisk had on its list what Kahane had craved for so long,
0:24:32 > 0:24:36a modern literary classic with a scandalous reputation,
0:24:36 > 0:24:38and sales to match.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43Its success now made Obelisk a port of call for all literary editors
0:24:43 > 0:24:45with difficult books to place.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50The money generated by the lighter, frothier fiction
0:24:50 > 0:24:55now allowed Kahane to take a punt on writers of genuine literary merit
0:24:55 > 0:24:57who couldn't get published anywhere else.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03Over the next few years, he would publish first editions
0:25:03 > 0:25:06by writers like Lawrence Durrell, Anais Nin,
0:25:06 > 0:25:08even James Joyce himself.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12Obelisk's roster of authors began to read
0:25:12 > 0:25:15like a who's who of inter-war literary heavyweights.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18But it wouldn't last for long.
0:25:18 > 0:25:19At the end of the 1920s,
0:25:19 > 0:25:23the Depression had seen many expatriates leave for home.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28At the end of the 1930s, a very different threat was looming.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32War was in the air.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37And in Germany, dangerous books had dangerous consequences.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42Undeterred, Kahane moved his offices here,
0:25:42 > 0:25:45to the suicidally expensive Place Vendome,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47where his rackety book business
0:25:47 > 0:25:50briefly rubbed shoulders with Cartier and Chanel.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53By now, what little health he had was failing fast.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56For all the success he'd had as a publisher,
0:25:56 > 0:26:00he was still haunted by his own personal failure as a writer.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04In 1937, he published his last novel.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Lady, Take Heed! appeared under the pseudonym Cecil Barr,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11but its mood is far from light.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13The bright young things have all gone home
0:26:13 > 0:26:17to be replaced by young women murdering abusive stepfathers,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20only to fall into the hands of abusive brothel-keepers.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25It's a story of broken dreams and frustrated desires.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28And to whom does Cecil Barr dedicate it?
0:26:29 > 0:26:31"To Jack Kahane,
0:26:31 > 0:26:35"without whose deep knowledge and wide experience of the subject
0:26:35 > 0:26:38"this book could never have been written."
0:26:40 > 0:26:44Kahane's poor health, which had haunted him all his life,
0:26:44 > 0:26:46continued to deteriorate,
0:26:46 > 0:26:48and on the 3rd of September, 1939,
0:26:48 > 0:26:51the very day war was declared,
0:26:51 > 0:26:54Jack Kahane died of heart failure.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59Within a few months, German troops had entered his beloved Paris.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04Kahane's son, Maurice, wrote the letter
0:27:04 > 0:27:07informing Obelisk's clients of its founder's death.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12Once the war was over, he would continue his father's work.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15In 1953, he established the Olympia Press,
0:27:15 > 0:27:19and, copying his father's tried and tested business model,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22published incendiary books that no-one else would touch.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25The spirit of Jack Kahane lived on.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31Kahane's ambition had been to become a great writer.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35Instead, he became one of the most influential publishers
0:27:35 > 0:27:37of the 20th century.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41The books he printed challenged what was acceptable in literature,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45and their impact resonated long after his death.
0:27:46 > 0:27:48In 1960, more than 20 years
0:27:48 > 0:27:52after it was published by the Obelisk Press,
0:27:52 > 0:27:53a landmark court case allowed
0:27:53 > 0:27:56Lady Chatterley's Lover to be sold in the UK.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59And four years later, the US Supreme Court finally ruled
0:27:59 > 0:28:04that Henry Miller's Tropic Of Cancer was not obscene.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08The rules that had constrained freedom of expression for so long
0:28:08 > 0:28:10had begun to fall apart.
0:28:10 > 0:28:15Kahane was a man of romantic ideals but realistic expectations.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17Yes, he was called a pornographer,
0:28:17 > 0:28:21but that was only ever a means to a much more ambitious end.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25He was a man who loved literature, who loved art,
0:28:25 > 0:28:29and who was prepared to push the boundaries of what was acceptable
0:28:29 > 0:28:30in order to bring us some of
0:28:30 > 0:28:33the most important books of the 20th century.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35He may have failed as a writer,
0:28:35 > 0:28:39but Jack Kahane should be remembered as one of the most radical,
0:28:39 > 0:28:42pioneering publishers in literary history.