Dear Dirty America

Readers and non-readers really should give Barney Rosset a heartfelt bow.

As found in the WSJ:

The fiery and publisher Rosset, who introduced the country to countless political and avant-garde writers and risked prison and financial ruin to release such underground classics as “Tropic of Cancer” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” has died. He was 89.

As publisher of Grove Press, Rosset was a First Amendment crusader who helped overthrow 20th century censorship laws in the United States and profoundly expanded the American reading experience. Rosset had an FBI file that lasted for decades and he would seek out fellow rebels for much of his life.

Between Grove and the magazine Evergreen Review, which lasted from 1957 to 1973, Rosset published Samuel Beckett, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence and William Burroughs. He was equally daring as a film distributor, his credits including the groundbreaking erotic film “I Am Curious (Yellow),” and art-house releases by Jean-Luc Godard, Marguerite Duras and others.