AustLit

One of the most distinguished US writers of the twentieth century, Gore Vidal's work was banned on three instances in Australia. The City and the Pillar from 1948 is remembered as one of the first 'out' or realist homosexual novels, and was banned from 1950 to 1966. The Judgement of Paris was banned by Ministerial intervention in 1953 and Myra Breckenridge, an adventurous satire of gender play and transgression, was banned in 1968. Politics lecturer Dennis Altman took Customs to court over the seizure of his copy of Myra Breckenridge in 1970, but a NSW Magistrate ruled that it was obscene. Altman's work Gore Vidal's America includes some description of this trial and testifies to the ongoing friendship between the two writers.