Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge.
Read more about Obscene Publications Acts: Timeline of Legislation, Key Cases Under The Obscene Publications Act
Famous quotes containing the words obscene, publications and/or acts:
“Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Dr. Calder [a Unitarian minister] said of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on the publications of Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi, that he was like Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own pack.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
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—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)