State authorities yesterday added the name of author James T. Farrell to their ever-growing blacking for booksellers locally known as the "Boston Police List."
In a note issued throughout the Greater Boston area, the Boston Distributing Company, agents for Signet and Mentor pocketbooks, advised all merchants to remove all copies of Farrell's "A World I Never Made" from their shelves.
When contacted yesterday morning, a spokesman for the distributing company admitted that "certain groups" had strongly recommended the immediate withdrawal of the Signet double-volume edition from public sale. The representative refused to name the groups. He added that removing the books is "completely voluntary--dealers can sell them if they choose to."
Police Deny Ban
Unofficial reports point to the state police and Daniel I. Murphy. Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Safety, as the group responsible for the action. A Harvard Square bookseller told the CRIMSON yesterday that a police official had been scouring his shelves for copies of Farrell's book. Both Cambridge and Boston police, however, deny any connection with the unofficial list.
When "A World I Never Made" first appeared. Pulitzer prize-winning historian Bernard DeVoto said in the Saturday Review of Literature that it is "Presented with ecstasy... Goes beyond 'Stads Lonigan."
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