The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst, Free Speech Renegade by Samantha Barbas (review)

Abstract

M Ernst (1888-1976) was the lawyer who developed and presented arguments that won judicial determinations that James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was not obscene. These victories fundamentally changed the law of obscenity in both the United States and England and established authors’ right to present the world as they saw it. Ernst’s life merits this wide-ranging and fascinating biography by an author with the impressive credentials of Samantha Barbas, who holds a doctorate in history from Berkeley, a law degree from Stanford, and a professorship at the University at Buffalo School of Law. As told in this biography, Ernst’s life is a testament to what an individual can accomplish through talent, hard work, and a desire to make public and private institutions deliver a better and freer life for everyone. Barbas shows how Ernst used his considerable abilities to advocate for social reform and civil liberties in court, before legislative bodies, on committees, in the press, during dinners, and on many other occasions. He was a whirlwind. Barbas deftly situates Ernst’s accomplishments in the context of the social and political history of his times. Reviewing the book foregrounds the problem faced by one of Ernst’s contemporaries in trying to write about him: “There are too many facets, too many angles, and I keep floundering around simply trying to decide which one to grab at next” (292).1 This review deals with the problem by focusing primarily on a subject in which readers of this publication will be particularly interested: the book’s account of the Ulysses litigation. The subject merits careful attention because the struggle for authorial freedom is never over, and the arguments that worked for Ulysses will be needed again. Those that failed should be avoided. In this context, Barbas’s treatment of litigation forming the backdrop against which Ernst achieved his victories is troubling. The earlier case arose in 1920 out of the publication of episodes of Ulysses in The Little Review. The magazine’s editors, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, were prosecuted on obscenity charges in a New York City court for publishing part of episode XIII, in which Leopold Bloom ejaculates while looking at Gerty MacDowell’s exposed “nainsook knickers.”2 Barbas’s authoritative voice tells readers that New York attorney John Quinn made a “persuasive argument” by urging that “Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it” (152). James Joyce Quarterly 59.4 2022