<P> In 1873, controversy over the depiction of William Ewart Gladstone, Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke, and Acton Smee Ayrton in W.S. Gilbert and Gilbert Arthur à Beckett's The Happy Land led to the play's licence being revoked by the Lord Chamberlain . A censored version of the play was eventually allowed to be performed, but uncensored scripts, with the censored portions printed in all capital letters, were printed by the theatre's manager . The play became a smash hit . </P> <P> The novel Ulysses by James Joyce was banned in the United Kingdom in 1922 when it was declared obscene . </P> <P> Novelist George Orwell wrote several articles on censorship including an item titled The Freedom of the Press in 1943 . It appears that this was a preface for his book Animal Farm, but it is unclear if it had been deliberately suppressed or if Orwell himself chose not to publish it . </P> <P> Any fair - minded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome . We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian' co-ordination' that it might have been reasonable to expect . The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions . The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary .--George Orwell </P>

What happened to freedom of speech in uk