'Hecate' Seller Found Guilty

July 18, 1947
Hollywood

Are dirty books being sold in Hollywood? According to an 8 woman/ 4 man jury in Municipal Judge Mildred L. Lillie’s court, yes. Although the conviction of bookseller Harry Wepplo and the Pickwick Book Shop Corp. was previously dismissed following a reversal in the State Supreme Court, the City of L.A. made a fresh charge. The offense was selling Edmund Wilson’s racy “The Memoirs of Hecate County,” and Judge Lillie insisted that every word of its six short stories be read aloud in her courtroom. It was no defense for Wepplo to claim ignorance of the content: if the jury found the book dirty, it was their civic duty to convict.

And so they did. Harry Wepplo was released on his OR, and attorney Raymond Stanbury stated he would ask for dismissal when court reconvened on Friday.

And from the uppity New York literary critic who wrote the filthy tome, or Doubleday, the fly-by-night smut merchants who published it, not a peep was heard.