Obscenity

Obscenity as a legal standard has been notoriously difficult to define — the US Supreme Court's "I know it when I see it" formulation captures the problem. The Obscene Publications Act (UK, 1857) and the Comstock Act (US, 1873) gave authorities sweeping powers that were used not just against pornography but against serious literary works. The landmark 1960 Lady Chatterley trial in Britain, in which the jury acquitted Penguin Books, effectively ended literary obscenity prosecutions in the English-speaking world.