The annotated copy of the book was sold at auction to someone in the US last October but it was temporarily stopped from leaving the UK by the government before a crowdfunding campaign by English PEN raised funds to keep it in Britain.

The decision to impose the bar was made on the advice of a committee of experts led by Sir Hayden Phillips, who said the copy was a “witness” to one of the 20th century’s most important criminal trials.

R v Penguin Books Ltd saw the prosecution of Penguin Books at the Old Bailey, under obscenity laws, over its publication of the novel.

The jury delivered a verdict of “not guilty”, paving the way for freedom to publish explicit material in the UK.

Sir Laurence Byrne brought his copy of the book to court every day inside a blue-grey damask bag that had been hand-stitched by his wife.

Lady Dorothy Byrne also marked up the sexually explicit sections of the book on headed Central Criminal Court paper, with comments including “love making” and “coarse”.

The jury took a mere three hours to reach their decision, which auction house Sotheby’s said “helped bring to birth a more liberal and permissive Britain”.