Naked Lunch Judged Not Legally Obscene

A sharply divided Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided Thursday that William Burroughs' '36 Naked Lunch can be sold in Massachusetts.

Four of seven justices described the book as "grossly offensive," but said it was not technically obscene.

Dissenting justice Paul C. Reardon '32, who was recently elected a Harvard Overseer, joined by justice Paul G. Kirk '26, called the book "literary sewage." The two were bitterly critical of the majority for relying on the testimony of professors from Harvard, Wellesley, and M.I.T. and other experts who said the book had "literary significance."

The book, written in Paris by Burroughs while he was reportedly a drug addict, details the hallucinations of a man under the influence of narcotics.