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Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature
by Adam Morgan
Book Reviewed by:The definitive biography of overlooked queer icon Margaret C. Anderson, whose fight to publish James Joyce's Ulysses led to her arrest and trial for obscenity. Perfect for fans of The Editor and The Book-Makers.
Already under fire for publishing the literary avant-garde into a world not ready for it, Margaret C. Anderson's cutting-edge magazine The Little Review was a bastion of progressive politics and boundary-pushing writing from then-unknowns like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, and Djuna Barnes. And as its publisher, Anderson was a target. From Chicago to New York and Paris, this fearless agitator helmed a woman-led publication that pushed American culture forward and challenged the sensibilities of early 20th century Americans dismayed by its salacious writing and advocacy for supposed extremism like women's suffrage, access to birth control, and LBGTQ rights.
But then it went too far. In 1921, Anderson found herself on trial and labeled "a danger to the minds of young girls" by a government seeking to shut her down. Guilty of having serialized James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses in her magazine, Anderson was now not just a publisher but also a scapegoat for regressives seeking to impose their will on a world on the brink of modernization.
Author, journalist, and literary critic Adam Morgan brings Anderson and her journal to life anew in A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls, capturing a moment of cultural acceleration and backlash all too familiar today while shining light on an unsung heroine of American arts and letters. Bringing a fresh eye to a woman and a movement misunderstood in their time, this biography highlights a feminist counterculture that audaciously pushed for more during a time of extreme social conservatism and changed the face of American literature and culture forever.
Preface
Winter 1921
The Photo
On a cold afternoon in the heart of Greenwich Village, Margaret C. Anderson bumped into the man who wanted to put her in prison.
The streets of New York were lined with snowdrifts stained black by soot, smog, and Model T motor oil. Downtown, the terracotta-clad Woolworth Building was the tallest in the world while the Jazz Age simmered in speakeasies like The Back of Ratner's. Uptown, Langston Hughes was a freshman at Columbia University, publishing poems in the school paper. Across the city, neighborhoods were consumed by the first Red Scare following a presumed anarchist bombing on Wall Street the previous year that had claimed the lives of thirty people.
Margaret braced herself against the chill in the one suit she owned, eggshell blue, worn daily with a georgette blouse that she washed every other night by hand. Walking down Eighth Street, she began editing Greenwich Village in her mind: flower boxes for every window, granite cobblestones instead of brick ...
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (2/19/2026)
...meshed with a mother-son relationship. My next read was a random discovery on a recent trip to the library. I can't wait to see what it's all about: A DANGER TO THE MINDS OF YOUNG GIRLS by Adam Morgan.
-Anne_Glasgow
In 1922, Ulysses appeared in book form, bound in its now-iconic turquoise cover, and revolutionized the literary world. But before that, in 1918, readers of The Little Review had already read fourteen of the novel's eighteen episodes, thanks to the drive of the magazine's creator, Margaret Anderson. For readers already familiar with the modernist scene, this richness may be fascinating; for newcomers, it can feel overwhelming, especially when at times the narrative gives more space to lovers and side characters than to what The Little Review actually accomplished. At the same time, the level of detail is extraordinary. The endmatter is expansive, and the research is meticulous. Morgan also draws a rich atmosphere, and, above all, offers a vivid portrait of Anderson as a woman who not only serialized Ulysses, but cultivated a radical space for new writing, championed voices that reshaped modern literature, and built a magazine that remains a treasure trove of experimentation...continued
Full Review
(698 words)
(Reviewed by Alicia Calvo Hernández).
Kevin Kwan, bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians
A fascinating account of a remarkable woman dangerously ahead of her time. Margaret C. Anderson championed the most scandalous writers and thinkers whom we hold dear as literary geniuses today, and her story is more important now than ever before. Sarah Rose Etter, author of Ripe and The Book of X
An exhilarating portrait of a woman whose battle matters now just as much as it did in 1921. Exquisitely researched, deeply felt, and poignant. This one belongs on your shelf.
In Gertrude Stein's salon, where every Saturday the leading artists of the time gathered, along with writers, film directors, painters, sculptors, and even bullfighters, a portrait of Stein painted by none other than Picasso (and surrounded by Matisses and Cézannes) presided over the room, just as Stein dominated the space. This was the same circle in which Margaret Anderson moved during her Paris years, and she was a fixture of this very salon. Like Stein, Anderson was an editor and conversation-maker, a catalyst and promoter of ideas. But her interest in fostering creative exchange had begun long before Paris in the salons of Chicago, where The Little Review, the magazine she founded, first took shape.
It was in one of these ...
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