Fanny Is Legal On Boston Hills

Fanny Hill is back--to stay.

The United States Supreme Court yesterday reversed, 6-3, the finding of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is "obscene, impure, and indecent" and may not be sold in the Commonwealth.

But at the same time, the Court seemed to stiffin its obscenity sandarcs by upholding he convictions of Raiph Glnzburg, publisher of Eros magazine, and Edward Mishkin, a Yonkers, N.Y., book dealer, for violations of Federal and New York obscenity laws. The nine justices filed a total of 14 opinions in the three cases.

Even in the Fanny Hill case, Associate Justice William J. Brennan said, "evidence that the book was commercially exploited for the sake of prurient appeal might justify the conclusion that the book was without redeeming social importance."

Apparently, however, the Court was convinced by the 1964 defense testimony of Boston area literary experts, including John M. Bullitt '43, professor of English. Attorney General Edward W. Brooke had moved against the book in Suffolk Superior Court under pressure from the Mass. Obscene Literature Control Commission.

Bullitt hailed the Court's decision last night, pointing to Fanny Hill's "detect nb'e literary merit and historic interest."

But he added that he is "glad to see that the Supreme Court is drawing distinctions and no opening all doors to any kind of literature."

It was not immediately clear how the Fanny Hill decision would affect other Massachusetts obscenity proceedings, including last year's case against Maked Lunch, by William Burroughs '36.