Samuel Gruber, who was arrested in 1891 by Cincinnati Police for distributing obscene literature, didn’t hide his filthy wares. He displayed his most offensive books in the front window of his shop. According to the Cincinnati Post [7 December 1891], a reporter found a crowd of young people gathered around Gruber’s News Depot at 348 West Fifth:



“Pushing his way through the juvenile throng, the reporter, curious to see the object of their wonderment, glanced through the glass partition. The first thing that met his gaze was the title of a book called ‘A Marriage Below Zero.’ Near by, in bold letters upon a red cover appeared the name of another novel entitled ‘Cranky Ann, the Street Walker,’ while ‘Irish Mollie, Queen of the Demi-Monde,’ ‘Wicked Nell, a Gay Girl of the Town,’ and ‘The Life and Adventures of Miss Fanny Hill’ stood out bold and brazen as if to challenge and lure on youthful readers. It appeared more like a museum of literary horrors than the show-window of an extraordinary book store.”

The Post reporter was on a mission. His newspaper claimed that pornography was freely available in the city, so he needed a high-profile arrest to prove it. The unnamed reporter had no question that the books at Samuel Gruber’s shop were vile and filthy, and he took great pains to describe just how revolting they were. Here is just one of seven paragraphs used to describe “Fanny Hill”:

“Between pages 74 and 75 is a portrait of a female perfectly nude. She has just stepped out of the bath apparently and is in front of the mirror admiring herself. Her back is turned to the spectator, doubtless to hide the blushes of her face, and nature is outlined as distinctly and as perfectly as skilled art can produce it.”

The book in question is “The Life and Adventures of Miss Fanny Hill,” one of the many cheap editions of John Cleland’s 1748 “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” sold illegally in America during the 1800s. The inserted engravings, which the Post so enthusiastically described, were copies of fine art displayed in some museum or another, and the newspaper admitted as much:

“There is no question that each one of these illustrations is the representation of beautiful works of art, either the copies of pictures from master artists or fac-similes of classic statuary and if taken out of their present positions and placed where they would have suitable surroundings and then approached by men and women – artists by instinct and profession – and studied with that object in view, possibly no objection could be made to them.”

Because Samuel Gruber freely displayed these books and because the illustrations were copies of accepted fine art, the reporter needed a new stratagem to force an arrest.

The reporter though out “a little ruse” to force police action. Today, we would call it entrapment. The Cincinnati Post reporter recruited two young girls to buy some of Samuel Gruber’s books. One of his “secret shoppers” appears to have been around 18 years old and the second “not quite 14 years of age.” The reporter made two lists of racy titles, gave the girls the lists and some money and watched Samuel Gruber fall into the trap by selling obscene literature to innocent children.

In addition to Fanny Hill, the Post reporter’s want list included two books by George W. M. Reynolds, “The Mysteries of the Court of London” and “Rose Foster;” and three books by Robert Hardy Andrews (writing as “Shang” Andrews), “Wicked Nell,” “Queen of the Demi-Monde,” and “Cranky Ann.”

Reynolds’ books, originally published serially, collect sordid anecdotes about the depraved English upper class and underworld. Shang Andrews apparently spent a lot of his time among Chicago’s prostitutes and wrote a series of books about life in the brothels of the Windy City. Most offensive to the Cincinnati Post was Shang’s refusal to kill off his protagonists as a morality lesson. “Cranky Ann,” for example, ends with the title character quitting her life of sin, getting married and leading a respectable life:

“The whole moral tendency of this book is to teach innocent young girls that they may be guilty of all kinds of depravity and excesses and then reform and lead exemplary lives. In other words one would infer from reading these pages that the price of sin was purity.”

Having acquired his illicit library with the help of his innocent procurers, the Post reporter rushed to see Cincinnati Chief of Police Philip Deitsch, dropped his haul on the chief’s desk and demanded to know what the police would do about it. The politically astute police chief immediately ordered Gruber’s arrest, and The Post got its headline. Although Gruber was arrested and bound over to the grand jury, the case against him was eventually dismissed. His jury, however, got to read some stimulating and prohibited literature, according to the Post [18 January 1892]:

“It is understood that each member of the Grand Jury took a copy of the vile books home and read them, after which the indictment was returned.”

Although The Post listed it among the books on display at Samuel Gruber’s store, one book apparently had nothing to do with the obscenity charges. That book was “A Marriage Below Zero” by Alan Dale (pen name of Alfred J. Cohen). The appearance of this book is interesting because it is believed to be the first English-language novel portraying a romantic relationship between two men. Perhaps the Post did not highlight this book because it would have been an unlikely purchase for a 13-year-old girl. Or, because the main character in “A Marriage Below Zero” dies at the end, thus illustrating the wages of sin, so the reporter didn’t think it supported his case. Be that as it may, the passing reference to “A Marriage Below Zero” is among the very few journalistic acknowledgements of homosexuality in 19th-Century Cincinnati.

Whether he continued to sell his pornographic paperbacks after his arrest is not recorded, but Samuel Gruber remained in business for 26 more years. He eventually closed the news stand in the West End and opened a candy store on Reading Road in Avondale.

Do news dealers still keep the “good stuff” hidden under the counter or in a back room? (Come to think of it, are news dealers still a thing?)