Anecdota Americana

the long version

Ah, the passage of time. This silly book contains 500 jokes/anecdotes that are suitable for use at men's lodge meetings, smokers, and stag parties. I think people once referred to this stuff as ribald, but it seems hilariously antiquated today. The origianl version was released in 1927, and there was a revised edition in 1944. The more fascinating story is the one behind the book. The book was sold under the table in "worldly" bookstores, include the Greenwich Village establishment of Samuel Roth. Roth is little known today, but he was at the forefront of defeating the censorship of books. He was the first to illegally publish Ulysses in America--completely in violation of Joyce's copyright. Still a brave move, even if he was a smut peddler! As the result of selling a copy of Anecdota Americana to a member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, Roth was charged with unlawfully selling an indecent book. The trial documents of that case make much more interesting reading than this book itself. Ultimately, Roth was sentenced to years in prison for selling a variety of erotic works.