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Volume 23 - October 2024

Contents

Page 3 of 4

Review Article

  • Anthony Comstock, Abortion, and the Arrest of Madame Restell

  • Nicholas L. Syrett
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 February 2025, pp. 467-472
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  • Anthony Comstock arrested many people, but perhaps none was so famous as Madame Restell, whom he arrested on February 11, 1878, for selling contraceptives and abortifacients. While Comstock’s actions had led to the arrest of other celebrated personae in the past – including Victoria Woodhull, her second husband James Blood, and her sister, Tennessee Claflin in 1872 – Restell’s arrest and looming trial led her to commit suicide by slitting her throat on April 1, 1878, which leant even further notoriety to the arrest.1 Because Restell remains best known as an abortion provider, and because Comstock succeeded in passing a federal statute that bears his name, one might assume that abortion occupied a central place in his campaign, or that Restell was arrested for performing an abortion. Neither is completely accurate. Indeed, Restell was not even arrested under the aegis of the federal statute, but instead under New York State law, though certainly at the instigation of Comstock and by him personally. By taking the arrest of Restell as a case study, this essay considers the various legal modes by which Comstock did his work, and the way he understood abortion as related to his greater campaign against obscenity and sexual license.

Book Reviews

Review Article

  • Understanding Comstock through Primary Sources

  • Kimberly A. Hamlin
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 February 2025, pp. 472-481
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  • In addition to reading and assigning the essays in this special forum, instructors may want to bring a discussion of Anthony Comstock and the Comstock Laws into their classes through primary sources. This essay introduces a few readily accessible and rich options.

Book Reviews

Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • JGA volume 23 issue 2 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2024, pp. f1-f5
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Book Reviews

Book Review

Book Reviews

Back Cover (OBC, IBC) and matter

  • JGA volume 23 issue 2 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 May 2024, pp. b1-b2
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Book Review

Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • JGA volume 23 issue 1 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 April 2024, pp. f1-f5
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Back Cover (OBC, IBC) and matter

  • JGA volume 23 issue 1 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 April 2024, pp. b1-b2
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Book Review

Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • JGA volume 23 issue 4 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 February 2025, pp. f1-f5
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Page 3 of 4