You Can't See 'Round Corners

You Can't See 'Round Corners is a novel by Jon Cleary. In January 1959, the Department of Justice informed the book's Australian publisher that it would be considered indecent in New Zealand, although the book had already been circulating in the country and stocked in public libraries for many years.

Its interest lies partly in the way literary or informational writing gets collapsed into a public-morality problem. As a novel, it can be read not only for subject matter but for the way form, tone, and circulation make a text feel dangerous, intimate, or politically usable to anxious officials.

It also matters as part of a wider censorship history in New Zealand. The present page is a dossier starter built from source-tracked ban records; the surviving note currently says: In January 1959, the Department of Justice informed the book's Australian publisher that it would be considered indecent in New Zealand, although the book had already been circulating in the country and stocked in. More publication history, translations, and close reading can be added later.

You Can't See 'Round Corners entered censorship debates as a novel associated with morality, print scandal, and sexuality. In the current dossier, the main state objections cluster around obscenity and public morality.

The earliest event currently captured here is 1959 in New Zealand, where Department of Justice classified, prohibited, or restricted. In January 1959, the Department of Justice informed the book's Australian publisher that it would be considered indecent in New Zealand, although the book had already been circulating in the country and stocked in. In January 1959, the Department of Justice informed the book's Australian publisher that it would be considered indecent in New Zealand, although the book had already been circulating in the country and stocked in public libraries for many years.

This entry is still incomplete: more jurisdictions, court orders, and translated justifications should be added over time.

This page is intentionally incomplete. The ban history is a starter dataset, not a final census of every jurisdiction or decree.

• Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds Dawn B. Sova

  Surveys the legal and moral language used to suppress books as obscene.

• Banned Books: 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D. Anne Lyon Haight

  Useful for seeing how obscenity law and censorship habits changed over time.

• 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova

  A compact reference on how censorship systems moved across states, churches, and courts.

• Wikipedia: List of books banned in New Zealand reference partial
• Wikipedia REST summary API database partial
• Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds book partial
• Banned Books: 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D. book partial
• 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature book partial