According to this nifty Guardian story, Ernest Hemingway was furious when a British publisher censored some of his language in the English version of Death in the Afternoon. From his letter to the publisher:
“If you want to publish any more books of mine, and it is quite all
right if you do not, it is necessary to understand this very clearly.
You are not my vicar. If the Pope is the vicar of Christ it is because
Our Lord is not here upon earth to make his own decisions. I am not
Christ (oddly enough) and as long as I am here upon earth will make my
own bloody decisions as to what I write and what I do not write…
“If you say a book will be suppressed if it contains certain words
and you do not care to publish it for that reason that is your affair.
If I find the words are not important and can conceivably change them
without loss of sense, meaning or effect I will change them or leave a
blank. I will be damned if I have any vicar pruning my books to please
the circulating libraries.”
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