The Victorian Customs Department and Respectable Limits of Taste: Émile Zola and Colonial Censorship

Author: BRIAN HUBBER
Explorations No 9 (Dec 1990): 3-16
https://doi.org/10.62586/HTOH8480

The author details the steps taken by Alfred Deakin when Chief Secretary of Victoria in the late 1880s to have some of Zola’s works prohibited and vendors guilty of selling them prosecuted. When legal opinion was obtained, it became obvious that the novel selected as a test case (Thérèse Raquin) “would not be held to be obscene within the meaning of the Act”. Deakin then sought the assistance not only of the Police but also the Customs Department to have copies of Zola’s books confiscated when attempts to import them were made. Using the Customs Act to censor books soon became common practice at both State and Federal levels.

Keywords: literary censorship, Customs Act, Emile Zola, Alfred Deakin, booksellers