A resonant tussle between “sex radicals” and a 19th-century censor

The Man Who Hated Women. By Amy Sohn. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 400 pages; $30

MOST PEOPLE who come to New York see a world bristling with opportunity. When Anthony Comstock arrived in 1867, all he saw was smut. He was shocked by the streetwalking, gambling, saloons and brothels, and by the peddlers openly hawking dirty pictures and “rubber goods” (sex toys and condoms). A pious Congregationalist, brought up in Connecticut to believe women were pure and saintly, he was horrified by the proliferation of manuals on contraception and better sex, and scandalised by newspaper advertisements for products that promised miscarriages.

As Amy Sohn writes in her colourful new book, “The Man Who Hated Women”, Comstock put his righteous indignation to use. He harnessed the state’s obscenity law to personally seize offensive books, assist in arrests and shut down saloons, often while brandishing a revolver. Having pushed and prayed for the federal ban on the distribution of “obscene, lewd or lascivious” material of 1873, Comstock used his position as a special agent in the US Post Office to crack down on anyone who promoted sex for purposes other than procreation. Petty and vindictive, he often resorted to deception and reportedly boasted of the number of people he had driven to suicide. Many of...