Redheap
Date: 1930
Region: Australia
Subject: Indecency
Medium: Literature
Artist: Norman Lindsay
Confronting Bodies: Victoria authorities and influential individuals
Dates of Action: 1930
Location: Australia
Description of Artwork: Redheap is a comical novel that mocks country life in Australia. Lindsay based the work off his old hometown of Creswick, Victoria. It became the first banned book in Australia
The Incident: Complaints from residents of Victoria that characters in the scandalous sections of the novel might be based on real people were sent to the Victoria police. This caused the Trade and Customs department to adopt the British method of judging obscenity (Which was based on the intent of the author to corrupt) to make a decision on the book.
Results of Incident: The attorney general did not find Redheap to be particularly indecent, but pressure from influential people in Victoria led to the book being banned anyway. The ruling was not to be repealed until the late 1950's.
Source: Censorship: A World Encyclopedia. Ed. Derek Jones. Chicago; London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001.