Barnet Lee "Barney" Rosset, Jr. (May 28, 1922 – February 21, 2012) was a pioneering American book and magazine publisher. An avant-garde taste maker, he founded Grove Press in 1951 and ''Evergreen Review'' in 1957, both of which gave him platforms for curating world-class and, in several cases, Nobel prize-winning work by authors including

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

(1969),

Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda ( ; ; born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 190423 September 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old an ...

(1971),

Octavio Paz Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, a ...

(1990),

Kenzaburō Ōe was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issue ...

(1994) and

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...

(2005). A voracious reader and a resourceful editor, Rosset was the first to publish Beat poets

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ...

, William S. Burroughs and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

, a who's who of playwrights including

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (; born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

and

, political biographies like Alex Haley's '' The Autobiography of Malcolm X'', erotic literature like the '' Story of O'', groundbreaking gay fiction by

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...

, and banned classics such as Henry Miller's ''

Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, also known as the Northern Tropic, is the Earth's northernmost circle of latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun ...

'' and D. H. Lawrence's '' Lady Chatterley's Lover''. Rosset's insistence on publishing "banned" books permanently redefined American obscenity law. "To do ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' before ''Tropic of Cancer'' would be more acceptable because D.H. Lawrence was a famous writer and revered at many levels," Rosset said in 2009, explaining his tactical reasoning after the fact. "''Lady Chatterley'' would be more feasible to make a battle plan for, and we did exactly that," starting with an uncensored version of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'', thirty years after its initial U.K. publication. After his first victory, Rosset moved on to the second, waging another legal battle to publish Miller's ''Tropic of Cancer''. In 1964, the Supreme Court affirmed Rosset's right to publish Miller's book. France later inducted him as a Commandeur dans l'

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...

to honor his contributions to American and world literature; the Norman Mailer Prize was given to him for his work as a "Distinguished Publisher" and the

National Coalition Against Censorship The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), founded in 1974, is an alliance of 50 American non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups. NCAC is a New York–b ...

recognized him for his contributions to

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognise ...

Grove Press

Cultural impact

As a publisher, Rosset's taste was sophisticated, multicultural, experimental and literary. As a brand, Grove focused on avant-garde literature, radical politics and erotica. In an interview with '' Tin House'' publisher Win McCormack, Rosset described what spurred him to publish Beckett: : e day I read in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' about a play called ''

Waiting for Godot ''Waiting for Godot'' ( or ) is a 1953 play by Irish writer and playwright Samuel Beckett, in which the two main characters, Vladimir (Waiting for Godot), Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters w ...

'' that was going on in Paris. It was a small clip, but it made me very interested. I got hold of it and read it in the French edition. It had something to say to me. Oddly enough, it had a sense of desolation, like Miller, though in its language, its lack of verbiage, it was the opposite of Miller. Still, the sense of a very contemporary lost soul was compelling. I got Wallace Fowlie to read it.... He read the play and told me that he thought — and this before anybody had really heard about it much — that it would be one of the most important works of the 20th Century.

Legal impact

In 1959, Rosset published D.H. Lawrence's 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, which the United States had banned in 1929, on the grounds of obscenity. After the book was released, the U.S. Post Office began confiscating copies sent through the mail, which led Grove Press to take legal action — and win. Emboldened, Rosset subsequently decided to publish Henry Miller's

, which was first published in France in 1934, and immediately banned by the U.S. Customs Service from being imported into the U.S., again, on grounds of obscenity. So in 1961, Rosset published it. " wsuits were immediately filed against him and booksellers that chose to carry the controversial novel. The trial eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled in Rosset's favor." In an interview with the ''Brooklyn Rail'', Rosset described the courtroom experience: : illerwouldn't go to the court.... He'd been summonsed so he was breaking the law by not going. So we went into court, and the District Attorney questioned me and said, "You see that we have a jury here of men and women with children who go to school right near where that book is on sale, near the subway stop. What'd you think they feel to have their children reading this book?" So I took out the book and started reading and the jury started laughing and they thought it was wonderful. I said to them, "If your children got this book and read the whole book you ought to congratulate them." And they loved it, and they refused to convict me of anything.

'' Evergreen Review''

Launched in 1957, '' Evergreen Review'' also pushed the limits of censorship, impacting the culture at large by inspiring younger Americans to embrace the

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

. Grove Press published

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by members o ...

writers, including William Burroughs,

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and ...

, John Rechy, Hubert Selby, Jr. and

. Rosset also purchased the American distribution rights to the Swedish film '' I Am Curious (Yellow)'', which had also briefly been banned in Boston, and later found not to be obscene in a Second Circuit Ruling. The Review shuttered in 1984, only to relaunch in 1998 online and under Rosset's management.

One thing I like about this new form of communication nlineis that you can have an article about, say, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago like any magazine, but you can also listen to the kind of music they were playing at the time. We can go into new realms of discourse.... They say there's still not enough memory for things like sound and visuals on the Internet, and it costs too much to put a magazine on-line. But that's all going to change fast. To get some idea of how fast, all you have to do is go to Bangkok and see all the poor people selling melons on the streets; and they all have cellular phones.

In 2013, soon after Rosset's death, the ''Evergreen Review'' ceased publication, only to be revived in 2017 under the management of John Oakes who got his start in publishing in 1987 as an assistant editor at Barney Rosset's Grove Press. The magazine, which also has a publishing arm called Foxrock Books "builds on Rosset’s legacy of searching out the stories that aren't being told or aren’t being heard: stories that challenge our sensibilities and expand our understanding of the way people actually live in the world, and the way their truths can be expressed."

Background

Born and raised in Chicago to a well-to-do Jewish father, also named Barney, who owned a bank, and an

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics () are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland, defined by their adherence to Catholic Christianity and their shared Irish ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage.The term distinguishes Catholics of Irish descent, particul ...

mother, Mary (née Tansey), Rosset attended the progressive Francis Parker School, where he was best friends with Haskell Wexler who went on to become a renowned cinematographer. According to Rosset,

Robert Morss Lovett Robert Morss Lovett (December 25, 1870 – February 8, 1956) was an American academic, writer, editor, political activist, and government official. Background Lovett was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University i ...

, the grandfather of Rosset's high school sweetheart, and professor of English at the University of Chicago, was also a great influence on him. Rosset attended Swarthmore College for one year before enlisting in the army in 1942. It was there that he first discovered the work of Henry Miller. During World War II, Rosset served in the Army Signal Corps as an officer in a photographic company stationed in Kunming, China. In 2002, more than 60 years later, Rosset collected some of his wartime photography for a NYC gallery exhibit that included graphic photos of wounded and dead Chiang Kai-shek soldiers. In 1949, Rosset married

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painter

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

, and settled in Greenwich Village. Although Rosset's initial ambition was to be a filmmaker like his childhood friend Haskell Wexler, the documentary he produced called ''Strange Victory'' about racism in post-World War II America, failed commercially. After his divorce from Mitchell, Rosset took courses at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

where he earned a second B.A. (after his first, from the University of Chicago), and worked for ''

Monthly Review Press The ''Monthly Review'' is an independent Socialism, socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. Established in 1949, the publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment ...

'' magazine. A friend of Mitchell's told Rosset about Grove Press and that the original founders wanted to sell. Rosset purchased it in 1951 for three thousand dollars, and served as publisher until 1985 when he sold the press to Wheatland Corporation operated by Ann Getty and George Weidenfeld. Rosset was married five times. His second wife, Loly Eckert, was a sales manager at Grove Press, and together they had a son named Peter. Rosset went on to have three more children: a son Beckett Rosset (named for Samuel Beckett) and Tansey and Chantal, daughter of Barney and his then-wife Grove Press editor Lisa Krug, who worked for the Press for 10 years until 1986. Rosset died after a double heart valve replacement in 2012, and his fifth wife, Astrid Meyers, whom he married in 2007, and also a former managing editor of ''Evergreen Review,'' survives him.

Awards

* In 1999, Rosset was awarded the French title Commandeur dans l'

. * On October 21, 2008, Rosset was honored by the National Coalition Against Censorship for his work defending free expression. * On November 19, 2008, Rosset received the lifetime achievement Literarian Award from the

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...

in honor of his contributions to American publishing. * In 2012, he was awarded the Norman Mailer Prize for "Distinguished Publisher."

Filmography

* "Obscene" is a documentary feature about Rosset by Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor that was released September 26, 2008. The film was a selection of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Features commentary by

Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous b ...

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of come ...

, William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Elsa Dorfman,

, Al Goldstein, Erica Jong, Ray Manzarek,

Michael McClure Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famo ...

, Henry Miller, John Rechy, Ed Sanders, Floyd Salas,

John Sayles John Thomas Sayles (born September 28, 1950) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films '' The Brother from Another Planet'' (1984), '' Matewan'' (1987), ...

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...

and

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African American revolutionary, Islam in the United States, Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figur ...

. * ''Barney's Wall: A Portrait of a Game Changer'' is a documentary produced by FoxHog Productions and Rosset's widow Astrid Myers. It tells a story about a painting that Rosset was painting on the walls of their apartment, which his wife had to move after Rosset's death when she had to relocate.

Bibliography

*Briggs, Joe Bob. ''Profoundly Erotic: Sexy Movies that Changed History'' *Glass, Loren. ''Counterculture Colophon: Grove Press, the Evergreen Review, and the Incorporation of the Avant-Garde''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0804784160 *Halter, Ed, and B. Rosset
''From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader''
New York: Seven Stories Press, 2018. ISBN 1609806158 *''Review of Contemporary Fiction'', Vol. X, no. 3, fall 1990, "Grove Press Issue." *Rosset, Barney. ''Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship''. New York: OR Books, 2017. ISBN 1944869042 *Rosenthal, Michael. "Barney: Grove Press and Barney Rosset" New York: Arcade Publishing, 2017. ISBM 978-1628726503

External links

Articles, obituaries and interviews

*Mayer, Martin
"How to Publish Dirty Books for Fun and Profit"
The Saturday Evening Post. January 25, 1969. * *Menand, Louis
"Banned Books and Blockbusters"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', December 12, 2016. *Thomas, Louisa
"The Most Dangerous Man in Publishing"
''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'', December 15, 2008.
Article about Barney Rosset
in ''International Herald Tribune'', September 2008. *Oakes, John
"Remembering Barney Rosset"
in Daily PEN American, February 27, 2012. *Martin, Douglas

''New York Times'', February 22, 2012. *Barney Rosset with Williams Cole
"In Conversation: A Life in Underground Letters"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', March 2, 2012.

Banned classics

The American Library Association's List of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century that have been banned or challenged

Film

Grove Press and ''Evergreen Review''

''Evergreen Review''
the online home of Evergreen. * The current incarnation of Grove Press i
Grove Atlantic

Television

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosset, Barney 1922 births 2012 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism Businesspeople from Chicago Businesspeople from New York City American book publishers (people) American magazine publishers (people) American people of Irish descent American people of Jewish descent American free speech activists United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army officers American war photographers American entertainment industry businesspeople Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 20th-century American businesspeople Military personnel from Illinois Francis W. Parker School (Chicago) alumni