The Oz trial was the longest obscenity trial in history.
It was also one of the worst reported. With minor exceptions, the Press chose to rewrite what had occurred, presumably to fit in with what seemed to them the acceptable prejudices of the times. Perhaps this was inevitable.
The proceedings dragged on for nearly six weeks in the hot summer of 1971, when there were, no doubt, a great many other events more worthy of attention. Against the background of murder in Ulster, for example, the Oz affair fades into its proper insignificance.
Even so, after the trial, when some newspapers realised that maybe something important had happened, trial and judgement by a badly informed press became the order of the day. A factual account was required.
This revised 50th anniversary edition of The Trials of Oz includes new material by all three of the original defendants, the prosecuting barrister, one of the Oz schoolkids, and even the daughters of the judge. There are also many illustrations, including unseen material from Felix Dennis’ own collection.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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