Reverend Thomas Hanrahan
Letter of complaint to Macmillan Company
November 27, 1945
Macmillan Company Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division
Letter of complaint from Reverend Thomas Hanrahan to Macmillan Company
Published in October 1944, Kathleen Winsor’s novel Forever Amber tells the story of an ambitious young woman in Restoration-era London who advances through the social scene in a series of sexual conquests. The novel became a bestselling phenomenon in the United States, but along with its success came a campaign to ban the book in Boston and a national conversation about historical depictions of women’s sexuality and the role of religion in America’s literary discourse. In 1947, a film based on the book was released starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde. In this letter, Reverend Thomas Hanrahan asks to be removed from the Macmillan Company’s mailing list because he found the company’s promotion of Forever Amber “at the Christmas season” to be “unforgivable.”
Teach with this item from Unit 1 of the curriculum guide, Reading Dangerously: Censorship and the Freedom to Read in 20th Century America.
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