October 3

In literary history

• 1957Judge Clayton Horn ruled Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' not obscene, finding it possessed 'redeeming social importance.' Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books had been arrested for publishing it; the verdict became a landmark for American free expression.

Writers born on October 3

• Henri Alain-Fournier (1886),
• Thomas Wolfe (1900)

The Daily Canon for October 3

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin (1929).