Banned in Boston
  • Published: 1 September 2018
  • ISBN: 9780807051115
  • Imprint: Beacon Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $50.00

Banned in Boston

The Watch and Ward Society's Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil

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A lively history of the Watch and Ward Society--New England's notorious literary censor for over eighty years.

A lively history of the Watch and Ward Society--New England's notorious literary censor for over eighty years.

Banned in Boston is the first-ever history of the Watch and Ward Society--once Boston's unofficial moral guardian. An influential watchdog organization, bankrolled by society's upper crust, it actively suppressed vices like gambling and prostitution, and oversaw the mass censorship of books and plays. A spectacular romp through the Puritan City, here Neil Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America, forever linked with the infamous catchphrase "banned in Boston."
  • Published: 1 September 2018
  • ISBN: 9780807051115
  • Imprint: Beacon Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $50.00
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About the author

Neil Miller

Neil Miller is the former editor of Boston's Gay Community News and was a staff writer at the Boston Phoenix. His book In Search of Gay America won the 1990 American Library Association Prize for lesbian and gay non-fiction, as well as a Lambda Literary Award. He is also the author of the book Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok.

Praise for Banned in Boston

Praise for Banned in Boston

  • "As a catchphrase, 'banned in Boston' made history; as an imprimatur it sold books." --Chronicle Review
  • "Miller relates a wealth of historical anecdotes...[they] left no shortage of entertaining censorship initiatives for Miller to recall here for readers' enjoyment." --Booklist
  • "With precision, perception, and wry wit, Neil Miller serves up a juicy tale of censorship past. From sex, drugs, and a swearing parrot to almost anything French, Banned in Boston demonstrates that campaigns to save us from ourselves never go out of fashion." --Nan Levinson, author of Outspoken: Free Speech Stories
  • "The fight for artistic freedom in America begins in Boston, and Miller gives us a front-row seat." --Christopher M. Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act