It was said that Stuart started the trend of publishing sex-topic books like “The Sensuous Woman.” He also is known for publishing the autobiography of porn star Linda Lovelace, named “Ordeal.” Lovelace starred in the seminal X-rated classic, “Deep Throat.”
Stuart made headlines in 1997 when his publishing company, Barricade Books, reissued “The Turner Diaries,” an anti-government, neo-nazi manifesto that was said to have been Timothy McVeigh’s inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing.
The Chicago Tribune called Stuart “either America’s most courageous publisher or its most crassly exploitive.”
After working in the newspaper business for many years, Stuart served as a merchant marine in World War II. After leaving the service he re-entered the publishing world, working for William Randolph Heart’s International News Service, Variety and Music Business.
In 1951 he launched Expose (later The Independent), which published stories most newspapers or magazines would be afraid to publish because they might offend subscribers or advertisers. Contributors included Upton Sinclair, Norman Mailer and John Steinbeck.
“Lyle Stuart saw himself as a figure on the outside who could break the rules,” Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, told the New York Times. “In today’s world, he’d be fussing at people from a blog.”
Writer and standup comedian Paul Krassner said about Stuart: “He was my oldest friend — we met in 1953 — my journalistic mentor and my first publisher. The only compensation is that he lived such a full and purposeful life. [He was] an outspoken freethinker and uncompromising literary revolutionist. I became the managing editor of his anti-censorship paper, The Independent, forerunner of the alternative press, and I just want to honor his contributions and acknowledge his loss.”
