88 Fun Facts About Banned Book

Which publisher arranged the seizure of Ulysses that led to the 1933 US ruling clearing it of obscenity?

Random House's Bennett Cerf had a copy seized by US customs to force a test case, and Judge John Woolsey then ruled the novel not obscene.

Ulysses drew a New York obscenity prosecution while being serialised in which magazine?

The Little Review's serialization ended after a New York court ruled the novel obscene in 1921, a year before the full book came out.

Penguin Books was prosecuted at the Old Bailey in 1960 for publishing which novel?

Lady Chatterley's Lover was acquitted, and the trial came to symbolize the permissive new values of the 1960s.

Who prosecuted the Lady Chatterley trial, asking jurors if they'd let their wife or servants read it?

Gerald Gardiner defended and Laurence Byrne presided; Roy Jenkins had written to The Spectator calling the prosecution a misapplication of the law.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's death over which novel?

The Satanic Verses brought Rushdie more than 30 years of death threats, and in 2022 he suffered life-changing injuries in a stabbing in New York state.

Which English city's protesters publicly burned a copy of Salman Rushdie's novel in January 1989?

Bradford's protesters burned the novel because some Muslims considered it blasphemous.

Which poet was arrested in 1957 for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was acquitted when Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Howl was not obscene.

Which organization led attacks on The Grapes of Wrath in California in 1939?

The Associated Farmers opposed its portrait of California growers, yet the novel became an immediate best-seller across the country.

In 1973 a school board in which state burned every copy of Slaughterhouse-Five in its furnace?

North Dakota's Drake school board burned 32 copies in the school furnace, and Kurt Vonnegut wrote to chairman Charles McCarthy that he had been insulted.

Which Pulitzer-winning graphic novel did a McMinn County, Tennessee, school board remove in 2022?

The vote cited profanity, violence and nudity; Art Spiegelman's book promptly shot to No. 1 on Amazon.

And Tango Makes Three is based on two real male penguins at which zoo?

Central Park Zoo keepers gave the male penguins Roy and Silo an egg to hatch, and the chick they raised, Tango, gave the book its title.

Which institution's committee excluded Huckleberry Finn in 1885, calling it 'the veriest trash'?

The trustees found it 'more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people'; the ALA still listed it fifth most banned in 2007.

In 1981, which novel was both the most censored and the second most taught book in US public schools?

The Catcher in the Rye drew challenges mainly over its profane and vulgar language, along with its sexual references.

Lolita was first published in Paris in 1955 by which publishing house?

Olympia Press put out the first edition, and after British customs began seizing copies, the French government banned the novel too, in 1956.

Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 during which period of American history?

Bradbury wrote it amid the Second Red Scare, but he later insisted the novel was really about television killing interest in literature.

Doctor Zhivago was smuggled out of the USSR and first published in 1957 in which country?

Italy's Giangiacomo Feltrinelli published it first, and the CIA later had copies printed in Russian and handed to Soviet tourists at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.

Which country banned The Da Vinci Code in September 2004 after Catholic leaders deemed it offensive?

Lebanon banned it after Catholic leaders objected to its portrayal of Christ marrying Mary Magdalene and fathering a child.

Which George Orwell book was banned in the schools of the United Arab Emirates in 2002?

Animal Farm was banned along with 125 other books for clashing with Islamic and Arab values, its leader being a talking pig.

Which spy memoir did the British government fight to suppress from 1985 until 1988?

Spycatcher came out in Australia in 1987 after Britain lost its court case there, and the government's fight to stop it in the UK failed the next year.

Which newspaper editor led the 1928 campaign to suppress The Well of Loneliness?

James Douglas of the Sunday Express called for the novel's suppression, and Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks then started legal proceedings.

Which erotic novel did the US Supreme Court finally clear of obscenity?

John Cleland's Fanny Hill had been ruled obscene by Massachusetts's highest court before the Supreme Court overturned that in Memoirs v. Massachusetts.

Gustave Flaubert was prosecuted for obscenity in January 1857 over which novel?

Madame Bovary's trial ended with Flaubert cleared, and the scandal helped make the novel a bestseller when it appeared in two volumes that April.

In 1964 the US Supreme Court declared which Henry Miller novel not obscene?

Tropic of Cancer was cleared in Grove Press v. Gerstein, which overturned a Florida ban on the book.

The Nazi book burnings of 10 May 1933 in Berlin took place at which square?

Opernplatz is where Joseph Goebbels told the crowd that the age of excessive Jewish intellectualism was over as the books burned.

Which organisation actually carried out the 1933 Nazi book burnings?

Its 'Action against the Un-German Spirit' targeted authors from Marx and Heine to Helen Keller, Hemingway and Jack London.

Which children's book did Alabama segregationists attack in 1959 for promoting racial integration?

The Rabbits' Wedding showed a white rabbit marrying a black one; Alabama's state library chief answered the attacks by moving it to reserve shelves, where librarians could still request it.

Which 1873 US law, named for an anti-vice crusader, made mailing 'obscene' literature a federal crime?

The Comstock Act was enforced by Anthony Comstock himself as a special Post Office agent, and he used it to make arrests.

Which 1982 Supreme Court case, a Brennan plurality, addressed removing library books?

Island Trees v. Pico began when a Long Island school board pulled books it called anti-American, anti-Christian and just plain filthy, and students sued.

Which library activist helped found Banned Books Week in 1982?

Judith Krug helped launch it amid a sudden surge in challenges to books in libraries, bookstores and schools.

Which graphic memoir was the American Library Association's most challenged book in 2021, 2022 and 2023?

Gender Queer drew challenges over its LGBTQIA+ content and over claims that it was sexually explicit.

Which state issued the most book title challenges in 2022, per the ALA?

Texas topped the 2022 count as Houston-area schools began pulling books from shelves for review, part of a statewide surge in bans.

In 2010 Culpeper County schools in Virginia stopped teaching the 'Definitive Edition' of which famous journal?

The Diary of a Young Girl's Definitive Edition adds passages left out of the original, which a parent complained were sexually explicit.

Which novel is restricted to over-18s across Australia, with sale banned outright in Queensland?

Australia has also banned The Anarchist Cookbook since 1985 under its National Classification Code.

Which children's book series topped the ALA's list of most challenged books in both 2012 and 2013?

Captain Underpants was challenged for offensive language and for being unsuited to its age group, among other complaints.

Which California district dropped To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men from required reading in 2020?

Burbank Unified dropped five classics from required reading after complaints about racism, though the books stayed in classroom libraries.

A 2003 court overturned an Arkansas district's permission rule for which book series?

Harry Potter books went back into general circulation after a fourth-grader's parents sued the Cedarville School District.

In 2006 a resident of Marshall, Missouri tried to remove which graphic memoir from the public library?

Fun Home and Craig Thompson's Blankets were pulled while the library wrote a selection policy, and both went back on the shelves in 2007.

In 2024, The Perks of Being a Wallflower tied with which Toni Morrison novel as the third most challenged US book?

Stephen Chbosky's novel about a shy freshman named Charlie has been a challenge-list fixture for two decades.

Which book did Utah's Davis School District pull from elementary schools in 2023 after a parent's complaint?

The Bible stayed in the district's high schools after a committee reviewed it, and the school board put it back on the lower-school shelves within weeks.

Which reference book did California's Menifee schools pull from classrooms in 2010 over one graphic entry?

A dictionary, Merriam-Webster's 10th edition, left fourth- and fifth-grade rooms after a parent complained about a sexual term it defined. Officials said they would look for other graphic entries.

Which American author answered the Nazi burning of her books in 1933 with an open letter to German students?

Helen Keller told the students that burning books could not kill ideas that had already spread through millions of channels. Her work went into the fires beside Einstein's and Jack London's.

Which Dr. Seuss book stayed on a California school reading list in 1988 despite claims it was unfair to loggers?

The Lorax later drew a rebuttal from the timber trade: Truax, a booklet from a flooring makers' association in which a logger wins over a talking tree called the Guardbark.

Which picture-puzzle series made the American Library Association's most-challenged list over one topless sunbather?

Where's Waldo?, known in Britain as Where's Wally?, tucked her into a crowded beach scene. Some school libraries and the retailer BJ's Wholesale Club pulled the book in the early 1990s.

Which US vice president's pet bunny, Marlon Bundo, starred in a parody picture book among 2018's most challenged?

Mike Pence's family pet falls for another male bunny in the parody, written by a staffer on John Oliver's TV show. It became Amazon's No. 1 book the day after its release.

Which novelist mocked Virginia's Hanover County school board in 1966 by offering $10 to enroll it in first grade?

Harper Lee sent the money to a Richmond newspaper while the board weighed dropping To Kill a Mockingbird. A parent had complained that a plot built on rape was immoral.

Which Margaret Atwood novel was printed as one 'unburnable' copy that sold for $130,000 at auction?

The Handmaid's Tale had been one of America's most challenged novels for decades, so its author and publisher made the fireproof copy in 2022 as a protest against censorship.

Which American children's classic did Detroit's library director ban in 1957 as having no value for children?

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was also accused of encouraging negativism and dragging young minds to a cowardly level. A Michigan professor replied that kindness and unselfishness were hardly worthless.

In 2010 a state school board cut Bill Martin Jr.'s Brown Bear picture book after mistaking him for whom?

A Marxist philosopher who was also named Bill Martin had published a book on ethics in 2008. The board member who raised the alarm later admitted she had barely looked into it herself.

Which author of Forever had five titles among the American Library Association's most challenged books of the 1990s?

Judy Blume saw Forever, her 1975 novel about teen sex and birth control, rank seventh on that list. She went on to join the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Which John Green novel, a Printz Award winner, led the American Library Association's most-challenged list in 2015?

Looking for Alaska was faulted for profanity and one sexually explicit scene. PEN America later counted 97 school bans of it in three years, one short of the most banned title.

Which Jay Asher novel returned to the most-challenged list in 2017, the year Netflix turned it into a series?

Thirteen Reasons Why, in which a girl records cassette tapes about the people she blames for her death, finished the 2010s as the decade's third most challenged book.

Which Angie Thomas novel, named after a Tupac Shakur concept, was among the most challenged books of 2017?

The Hate U Give grew out of a short story its author wrote in college after the police shooting of Oscar Grant. It made the most-challenged list again in 2018, 2020 and 2021.

Which Pulitzer-winning novel, told in letters by a Georgia woman named Celie, made 2007's most-challenged list?

The Color Purple made its author the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Censors have mostly objected to its explicit scenes, particularly the violence.

Which poet's memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is often challenged for its account of childhood rape?

Maya Angelou wrote it after her friend James Baldwin and her editor dared her to produce an autobiography that was also a piece of literature. She was, by her own account, unable to resist a dare.

Which Lois Lowry novel, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, ranked 11th among the most challenged books of the 1990s?

The Giver has sold more than 12 million copies and is required reading in many middle schools, yet it stayed among the hundred most challenged books for three straight decades.

Which graphic memoir of a girlhood in revolutionary Iran did Chicago Public Schools pull from classrooms in 2013?

Persepolis was ordered out over graphic language and images. Students at Chicago's Lane Tech High School answered by flocking to the library to borrow it and staging protests.

Which poet's A Light in the Attic was challenged at a Wisconsin school over a poem about getting out of drying dishes?

Shel Silverstein's poem, How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes, drew a 1985 complaint at an elementary school in Beloit that it encouraged children to break dishes so they would not have to dry them.

Which Maurice Sendak picture book had its nude hero covered with marker-pen shorts or paper diapers by some librarians?

In the Night Kitchen shows its hero, Mickey, undressed for much of the story, and some booksellers refused to stock it at all. It ranked 25th among the most challenged books of the 1990s.

Which poetry collection got its author fired from a US government job in Washington after his boss found it offensive?

Leaves of Grass offended Interior Secretary James Harlan, who sacked Walt Whitman. In 1882 Boston's district attorney told the poet's publisher that the collection was obscene literature.

Which French classic did a US customs official in Boston stop in 1929 on its way to a Harvard class?

Candide was deemed obscene 170 years after Voltaire published it. Geneva and Paris had banned it within weeks of its first printing, and Rome added it to the Index of Forbidden Books in 1762.

Which William S. Burroughs novel had Norman Mailer testify to its merit at a Massachusetts obscenity trial?

Naked Lunch was first ruled obscene, but the state's highest court overturned the verdict and let it be sold. The US Postal Service and the city of Los Angeles had also moved against it.

Which federal judge ruled in December 1933 that James Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene and could enter the US?

John M. Woolsey opened the door to importing serious literature that used coarse language or dealt with sex. His opinion is now better known than the appeal ruling that upheld it.

Which Aristophanes comedy, about women who refuse sex to stop a war, did Greece ban in 1967 for its anti-war message?

Lysistrata was first staged in Athens in 411 BCE, and its heroine's name means 'army disbander'. She also has the women occupy the Acropolis.

Which English physician's expurgated edition, The Family Shakespeare, turned his surname into a verb for censoring?

Thomas Bowdler gave the word his name, but the first edition was edited by his sister Henrietta. His last project gave Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the same treatment.

Which English poet attacked Parliament's book-licensing order in his 1644 pamphlet Areopagitica?

John Milton issued the pamphlet without a licence, defying the very censorship he was arguing against. The order had required government approval before any work could be published.

Which translator's English New Testament was bought up and burned by the Bishop of London in 1526?

William Tyndale had his translation smuggled into England between the pages of other books. A decade later he was convicted of heresy, strangled and burned at the stake.

Whose Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems stayed on the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books until 1835?

Galileo Galilei was found vehemently suspect of heresy over the work in 1633. In a step not announced at the time, anything else he had written or might ever write was banned too.

Which Anthony Burgess novel got a US bookseller arrested in 1973 and was pulled from a Colorado high school in 1976?

A Clockwork Orange was removed in Aurora for objectionable language, though the charges against the bookseller were dropped. Much of it is told in Nadsat, an invented Russian-tinged slang.

Which emperor, later buried with the Terracotta Army, is said to have ordered a mass burning of books in 213 BCE?

Qin Shi Huang acted on the advice of his chancellor Li Si, who wanted every history but Qin's own destroyed. The story that he also buried 460 scholars alive is doubted by modern historians.

Which Dominican friar's followers burned books, art and cosmetics in Florence's 1497 Bonfire of the Vanities?

Girolamo Savonarola's supporters fed the flames with works by Boccaccio, among much else. The following year the friar himself was hanged and burned in the city's main square.

In which Mexican region did the friar Diego de Landa burn a native people's bark-paper books in 1562?

Yucatán's town of Maní was the site of the fire. Maya scribes are thought to have made thousands of folding books, yet only four survive, and Landa himself recorded that their owners grieved to an amazing degree.

Which Jewish text was burned by the wagonload in Paris in 1242 after a trial at the court of Louis IX?

The Talmud had been put on trial two years earlier, when four rabbis defended it against 35 charges brought by a convert. One estimate puts the 24 wagonloads at up to 10,000 handwritten volumes.

Which German poet, whose work the Nazis burned, warned in the 1820s that those who burn books end by burning people?

Heinrich Heine put the warning into his play Almansor, where a character says it on hearing that the Quran was burned in conquered Granada. The line is now engraved in the ground in Berlin.

Which First World War novel about German soldiers was among the first books the Nazis burned?

All Quiet on the Western Front had already drawn Nazi-organised mobs to cinemas showing its Oscar-winning film version in 1930. Its sequel, The Road Back, was banned and burned with it.

Which senior Nazi addressed some 40,000 people at the Berlin book burning of May 1933, in a speech carried on radio?

Joseph Goebbels had hesitated to speak at all. He had studied under several Jewish professors and once praised them, and he feared his enemies would dig the remarks up.

Which Russian word names the Soviet-era practice of copying banned writing by hand and passing it reader to reader?

Samizdat literally means self-publishing. Typewriters were its workhorse, and one historian claimed Soviet offices had to file samples of their typefaces with the KGB so that copies could be traced.

Which Doctor Zhivago author was forced by Soviet authorities to decline the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Boris Pasternak had seen the novel refused at home by the journal Novy Mir. Once it appeared abroad, the CIA secretly bought hundreds of copies as they came off presses around the world.

Which exposé of Soviet labour camps did the KGB track down in 1973 by interrogating one of its author's typists?

The Gulag Archipelago was published in Russian in Paris that same year. In 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and flown to West Germany.

Which German state held the copyright to Mein Kampf and blocked new German editions until the end of 2015?

Bavaria inherited the rights because Hitler's official residence was in Munich. Once they lapsed, the work was republished in Germany in 2016 for the first time since 1945.

Which Jung Chang memoir of three generations of women was banned in mainland China despite selling 15 million copies?

Wild Swans tells the lives of the author's grandmother, a warlord's concubine with bound feet, her mother and herself. It has been translated into 40 languages.

Which French poet was fined in 1857 over Les Fleurs du mal, six poems of which stayed banned until 1949?

Charles Baudelaire was fined 300 francs for an insult to public decency. He answered with a second edition that dropped the six condemned poems and added 35 new ones.

Which part of the US government paid to destroy the 9,500-copy first printing of the memoir Operation Dark Heart?

The Department of Defense spent $47,300 on the copies after intelligence agencies claimed that some 250 pages held classified information. The author then sued for the right to print it uncut.

Which US state enacted America's first law against book bans in 2023, cutting funds to libraries that remove titles?

Illinois cuts off state funding to any library that bans books for partisan or doctrinal reasons. Governor J. B. Pritzker signed the measure in June 2023 and it took effect the following January.

Which institution launched Books Unbanned in 2022, offering free e-cards to teenagers anywhere in the United States?

Brooklyn Public Library opened its digital shelves to anyone aged 13 to 21, and within nine months 6,000 teenagers had asked for a card. Seattle's library was the next to join.

Which group, founded in Florida in 2021 by former school board members, became prominent in school book challenges?

Moms for Liberty began by campaigning against mask and vaccine mandates in schools during the pandemic. By its first national gathering in 2022 it claimed 195 chapters in 37 states.

Which Toni Morrison novel, targeted by an activist, became a flashpoint in Virginia's 2021 race for governor?

Beloved gave its name to the 'Beloved Bill', which Governor Terry McAuliffe had vetoed in 2016 and 2017. His opponent Glenn Youngkin made those vetoes a campaign issue.

Which Robert Cormier novel about a secret society at a Catholic high school topped the most-challenged list in 2004?

The Chocolate War made the yearly top ten seven times in the 2000s and finished the decade as its third most challenged book, faulted for its language, sexual content and violence.

Which author of Emil and the Detectives witnessed in person the burning of his own books in Germany in 1933?

Erich Kästner was questioned several times by the Gestapo yet stayed in Germany through the war. He later wrote about what he saw at the fire.