Thank goodness for small mercies.

Feminist author Naomi Wolf’s publisher has canceled the U.S. release of her new book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, after its entire premise seemed to collapse in May following a brutal on-air interview with the BBC.

“On Monday, a spokeswoman for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said in an email that Ms. Wolf and the publisher 'mutually and amicably agreed to part company,'" the New York Times reported this week, adding that Wolf “confirmed the parting.”

The decision to “part company” comes months after Houghton Mifflin Harcourt already suspended its scheduled release of Wolf’s book, recalling thousands of already-distributed copies at a great financial cost to itself, following her disastrous interview with BBC’s Matthew Sweet.

It was during that sit-down with the British radio host that Wolf appeared to reveal that the premise of her book — that Victorian England was so draconianly anti-gay that its laws allowed for the execution of men found to be guilty of the act of sodomy — is based on her misunderstanding of a legal term.

To wit, Wolf revealed she understood the British legal term “death recorded” to mean “execute” rather than what it really meant, which is “pardoned.”

“One of the cases that you look at that’s salient in your report is that of Thomas Silver,” Sweet said during his May interview with Wolf, reading directly from an advance copy of her book. “It says … ['he] was actually executed for committing sodomy. The boy was indicted for an unnatural offense. Guilty. Death recorded. This is the first time the phrase unnatural offense entered the Old Bailey records.’”

Sweet added, “Thomas Silver wasn’t executed. … Death recorded is what’s in, I think, most of these cases that you’ve identified as executions. It doesn’t mean that he was executed. It was a category that was created in 1823 that allowed judges to abstain from pronouncing a sentence of death on any capital convict who they considered to be a fit subject for pardon. I don’t think any of the executions you’ve identified here actually happened.”

“Well, that’s a really important thing to investigate,” Wolf said meekly.

You think?

Everyone listen to Naomi Wolf realize on live radio that the historical thesis of the book she's there to promote is based on her misunderstanding a legal term pic.twitter.com/a3tB77g3c1 — Edmund Hochreiter (@thymetikon) May 23, 2019

If you can imagine it, things took a turn for the worse for Wolf during the BBC interview. Sweet also revealed that most of the cases highlighted in her book did not even involve consensual same-sex relations.

“Also,” he said, “it’s the nature of the offense here. Thomas Silver committed an indecent assault on a 6-year-old boy. And he served two-and-a-half years for it in Portsmouth prison, which doesn’t seem too excessive really."

Sweet added, “And I wonder about all the others because all the others that I followed up, I can’t find any evidence that any of these relationships that you’ve described were consensual. The other one you offer is James Spence, a 60-year-old tutor. He committed what was described as felonious assault on schoolboys. One of these cases you offer is a bestiality case and not a buggery case.”

This is devastating stuff. You would think Wolf would pack it up and start over. But you would be wrong. As recently as Oct. 1, she was still fighting the characterization that her book is essentially a tome of factual errors.

Washington Examiner repeats same serious error as @Nytimes, that @BBC, @AFP, @TheNewEuropean all corrected. Dozens of executions of men for sodomy DID take place in 19th Century. Whitewash of LGBTQ plus history continues. Washington Examiner,correct please https://t.co/EFcYsqDYip — Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) October 1, 2019

I guess we should not be shocked, then, when the New York Times reports this week that Wolf declared in an email that the book “would come out in the United States ‘in due course.’”

Please, no. There is only so much fake news this country can sustain.