FORBIDDEN BOOKS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 292, 13 June 1929, Page 1

FORBIDDEN BOOKS.

SOLD AT HIGH PRICES. Small fortunes have already been made on the Continent—and chiefly in Paris —by the sale of two novels on which a ban has been placed by the British authorities (reports the Paris correspondent of the London Daily Chronicle). They are Miss Radcliffe Hall’s “The Wells of Loneliness” and D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. A Paris bookseller tells me that royalties on the Continental sale of the first-named book must have exceeded £IO,OOO. He himself was aware of sales amounting to £3600 — that is, of 3000 copies at 150 francs a copy. And the demand for the book j is still great. Original copies changed hands at as much as seven guineas each. Of Mr Lawrence’s book there have already been three editions. The first, printed in Italy, was of 1000 copies, 150 being in de luxe style. “Of the 150,” the director of the Libraire Castiglione, one of the largest book shops in Paris, tells me that “most were sold for about £25 a copy. In the case of the last few, the price was £4O. It Is now impossible to obtain one. All the 1000 copies were signed by the author, and the ordinary copies were priced at 300 and 400 francs, except in the case of the last. On this the author wrote, ‘No. 1000, and last,’ with his signature. That book went for 7500 francs (£60).” Royalties on the whole edition amounted probably to £BOO- - second edition of 200 copies, printed in the United States, is a mystery. It is not stated who printed it; Hie autnor knowns nothing about it. Though the copies are in paper covers, the price was 400 francs (£3 ss). A third edition, of 1500 copies, was printed in Germany by a French publisher. Its price was 400 francs a copy.