Out of print for decades, Barricade Books is reprinting the complete and unabridged text of The Chinese Room. First published in America in 1942, Dial recalled the original edition soon after publication. The Society for the Suppression of Vice demanded the censorship due to the sexual nature of a particular phrase. Citadel Press offered an edition in 1943 minus the offending phrase, and a bestseller emerged, eventually selling more than three million copies in its various editions.
Unlike many books, The Chinese Room will be all things to all readers. Some will see it as a mystery story of the mind with suspense building up to a surprising yet inevitable climax.
Others will see a deeply satisfying tale of love and marriage-a story that shows us how much wiser we are than we know-at least in our bodies, if not in our minds.
Here is an uninhibited story about one of literature's most absorbing themes: the relationship of the sexes.
The Chinese Room merits a place in the league of earlier novels, censored due to erotic content, now accepted as literary masterpieces: Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lolita, and Tropic of Cancer.
