Episode 142 Tansey Rosset

Tansey Rosset is the daughter of legendary publisher Barney Rosset, who was one of the most important and influential publishers of the 20th century, and certainly one of the most important figures in the history of the battle against censorship in America. Barney bought Grove Press in 1951 and immediately published some of the most famous and controversial titles of the twentieth century—Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch. In 1957, Barney Rosset launched The Evergreen Review with work by Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mark Schorer, and James Purdy. For the next sixteen years, Evergreen introduced many world-class writers to American readers, such as Beckett, Genet, Grass, Ōe, Duras, Paz, Walcott, Nabokov. Tansey was kind enough to join Lydia and Tim and recount her memories of growing up with her father. She currently lives in Michigan, where she works as a nurse practicioner.