in honour of banned books:

[electricland]

officialgaiman, elissa_carey and crankygrrl remind me that Banned Books Week in the US is the last week in September. In honour of which, I had to dig this story out (posted in a comment on elissa_carey's blog, but I like it so much I wanted to keep it here as well): it's such a perfect comeuppance for the censors.

Banned or Withdrawn Books: Tyndale's New Testament Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, attempted to burn all the copies of Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into English. In October 1526 he compelled everyone in his diocese to hand over the copies they had, and then burned them at St. Paul's Cross. However, the books kept arriving from the continent, where they were printed, and even the ardour of the bishop was insufficient to prevent their circulation. A man called Packington offered to help the bishop by buying up as many Tyndales as he could, and the bishop, who saw in his mind's eye an unending succession of satisfactory bonfires, eagerly agreed. Unfortunately for him, Packington was a friend of Tyndale's and went off to see him at once. Edward Halle in his Chronicle tells what followed:

Augustine Packington came to William Tyndale and said: "William, I know thou art a poor man, and hast a heap of New Testaments and books by thee, for the which thou hast both endangered thy friends and beggered thyself; and I have now gotten thee a merchant, which with ready money shall dispatch thee of all that thou hast, if you think it so profitable for thyself."

"Who is the merchant?" said Tyndale.

"The bishop of London," said Packington.

"Oh, that is because he will burn them," said Tyndale.

"Yea, marry," quoth Packington.

"I am the gladder," said Tyndale, "for these two benefits shall come thereof. I shall get money of him for these books, to bring myself out of debt, and the whole world shall cry out upon the burning of God's word. And the overplus of the money, that shall remain to me, should make me more studious to convert the said New Testament, and so newly imprint the same once again; and I trust the second will much better like you than ever did the first." And so forward went the bargain: the bishop had the books, Packington had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money.

-- The Book of Literary Lists, ed. Nicholas Parsons

Banned Books Week is September 20-27, but start now! Read a banned book today!

The nice thing about reading a banned book, I always think, is that so many different people have wanted to ban so many different books over the years, there's one to suit every taste.

Linkage:

The University of Pennsylvania's Banned Books Online -- a great overview of censorship through the ages and across the world
Banned Books.com (warning! use of obscure HTML tags for evil!) A little wacky, but sincere.
Loyola University Chicago Libraries -- outdated but good.

Comments

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

That is such a great story, and wonderfully illustrative why I sometimes feel more amused than outraged at folks who decide to burn books: they end up doing the opposite of what they're intending. :)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

So true.

I did some more digging and it turns out poor old Tyndale was strangled and burned in 1536... but they did use most of his translation of the New Testament for the Authorized Version in 1611(?). Posthumous vindication!

I think I'd have liked Tyndale. He sounds like a pretty cool guy.

Master Tyndale happened to be in the company of a learned man and, in disputing with him ... the man said, "We are better to be without God's laws than the pope's." Master Tyndale, hearing this, replied, "I defy the pope and all his laws;" and added, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than thou dost." (Foxe, Book of Martyrs)

http://www.tyndale.org/
http://www.bible-researcher.com/tyndale.html

[electricland.livejournal.com]

...also, the story contains the line '"Yea, marry," quoth Packington' which I think makes the whole thing worth it right there.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Great story!

I celebrate Banned Books Week, too. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/chipuni/328739.html)

My wife, misseli, is a librarian, and even more vehemently pro-First amendment than I am. She keeps a blog about First Amendment issues at "http://www.madlibrarian.net".

[gleef.livejournal.com]

I feel like an idiot now. I didn't realize that misseli was madlibrarian. I think I subscribed to the Mad Librarian feed even before I found your Journal *sheepish*. She's got good stuff there! Send her extra hugs from me!