About Banned Books

Banned for racism and for use of offensive language that made students uncomfortable.
Huckleberry Finn has just been adopted by the Widow Douglass and her sister, and both are committed to changing Huck's "uncivilized" ways. Clean clothes, good manners, and steady church and school attendance are more than Huck can take. But when he is kidnapped by his drunken father, Huck's return to life without rules doesn't seem much better. He escapes and meets Jim, a runaway slave, and together the two travel the Mississippi River on a raft, heading toward Jim's freedom. This unabridged version of Mark Twain's classic American tale--a follow-up to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer--is taken from the 1885 copyright edition and includes original illustrations by Edward W. Kemble.

Banned for occultism and for being derogatory towards Mormons.
A beautiful unabridged edition with all 110 original illustrations and the first edition cover. Another book in the SeaWolf Press 100th Anniversary Collection. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. The book was first published in 1892; the individual stories had been previously serialized in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. The stories are not in chronological order, and the only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson. The stories are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view. In general the stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes identify, and try to correct, social injustices. Doyle included four of the twelve stories from this collection in his twelve favorite Sherlock Holmes stories, picking "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" as his overall favorite.

Banned for the use of expletives, drug use, diminishing authority in the eyes of children, and even - in China - for attributing animals with human-like complexity and putting them on the same level as humans.
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a whimsical and imaginative tale written by Lewis Carroll. The story follows young Alice as she falls down a rabbit hole into a surreal and nonsensical world. In this extraordinary place, she encounters peculiar characters like the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and the Mad Hatter, each presenting her with bizarre challenges and perplexing riddles. Alice navigates through a series of absurd adventures, where size becomes relative, logic is disregarded, and reality blends with fantasy. With its clever wordplay, delightful humor, and thought-provoking themes, Carroll's timeless masterpiece explores the power of imagination, the constraints of social norms, and the exhilarating journey of self-discovery.

Banned for sexual content and domestic violence.
Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Color Purple is a tale of personal empowerment which opens with a protagonist Celie who is at the bottom of America's social caste. A poor, black, ugly and uneducated female in the America's Jim Crow South in the first half of the 20th century, she is the victim of constant rape, violence and misogynistic verbal abuse. Celie cannot conceive of an escape from her present condition, and so she learns to be passive and unemotional. But The Color Purple eventually demonstrates how Celie learns to fight back and how she discovers her true sexuality and her unique voice. By the end of the novel, Celie is an empowered, financially-independent entrepreneur/landowner, one who speaks her mind and realizes the desirability of black femaleness while creating a safe space for herself and those she loves. Through a journey of literary criticism, Dialogue: Alice Walker's The Color Purple follows Celie's transformation from victim to hero. Each scholarly essay becomes a step of the journey that paves the way for the development of self and sexual awareness, the beginnings of religious transformation and the creation of nurturing places like home and community.

Banned for vulgar language, inappropriate sexual references, and clashing with Christian beliefs.
'The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude' When 'The Awakening' was first published in 1899, charges of sordidness and immorality seemed to consign it into obscurity and irreparably damage its author's reputation. But a century after her death, it is widely regarded as Kate Chopin's great achievement. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Chopin shows the transformation of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, who - with tragic consequences - refuses to be caged by married and domestic life, and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom.

Banned in Italy and Yugoslavia for being "too radical," and burned in Nazi bonfires for political views.
First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

Banned for its Socialist views and for its opposition to Communist ideology.
A searing novel of social realism, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle follows the fortunes of Jurgis Rudkus, an immigrant who finds in the stockyards of turn-of-the-century Chicago a ruthless system that degrades and impoverishes him, and an industry whose filthy practices contaminate the meat it processes. From the stench of the killing-beds to the horrors of the fertilizer-works, the appalling conditions in which Jurgis works are described in intense detail by an author bent on social reform. So powerful was the book's message that it caught the eye of President Theodore Roosevelt and led to changes to the food hygiene laws. In his Introduction to this new edition, Russ Castronovo highlights the aesthetic concerns that were central to Sinclair's aspirations, examining the relationship between history and historical fiction, and between the documentary impulse and literary narrative. As he examines the book's disputed status as novel (it is propaganda or literature?), he reveals why Sinclair's message-driven fiction has relevance to literary and historical matters today, now more than a hundred years after the novel first appeared in print. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Banned for being "obscene," "too sensual," and "shocking" because of its frank portrayal of sexuality and its obvious homoerotic overtones.
When Walt Whitman self-published "Leaves of Grass" in 1855, he rocked the literary world and forever changed the course of poetry. In subsequent editions, Whitman continued to revise and expand his poems--but none matched the raw power and immediacy of the first edition. This beautifully designed volume presents the 1855 "Leaves of Grass" in its entirety, unchanged, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous letter to Whitman. [Published by www.AmericanRenaissanceBooks.com.]

Banned for displaying prostitution, murder, “portraying the Church as unimportant,” and glorifying the French Revolution.
A thrilling tale of narrow escapes, romance in the midst of a revolution, and battlefield heroism, Victor Hugo's sprawling 1862 novel focuses on the Parisian underworld. Ex-convict Jean Valjean, who served 19 years in prison for stealing bread, attempts to redeem his life by helping the downtrodden. But his every move is dogged by the implacable policeman, Inspector Javert, whose relentless pursuit of a reformed criminal reflects a morally empty state that values retribution rather than justice.

One of the first books ever banned; banned by Caligula on the grounds that it expressed Greek ideals of freedom.
The Odyssey, Homer's epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan war, is one of the earliest and greatest works of literature. It is a wonderful story that has entranced generations over the last two and a half millennia. The characters and events are well known, and the form - a long journey of discovery and testing - has become a standard device in storytelling. Odysseus is known as "polytropos," a man of many twists and turns and tricks, a man who lives by his wits. As the Greeks leave for Troy, it is Odysseus' cleverness that allows him to find the hero Achilles who is crucial to their victory. Then, after ten years camped outside Troy and the loss of countless lives on both sides, he brings the Trojan war to a dramatic conclusion with the now famous Trojan horse. One expects Odysseus' story to end with his returning home as a hero. Instead, Homer and the fates send him on another ten years of travels. This is the story of the Odyssey. But it is much more than an exciting story; it is also about faithful marital love, and the love of home and country. Aristotle says that while The Iliad is about events, The Odyssey is about character. The word "odyssey" has entered the English language, and many regard The Odyssey as the world's most enduring narrative. Plato called Homer "the teacher of all Greece" and "the leader of Greek culture." Indeed, in the classical age, the Greeks regarded the Iliad and Odyssey as more than works of literature; they knew much of them by heart, and they valued them not only as symbols of Hellenic unity and heroism but also as sources of moral and even practical instruction. Homer's works have been studied, quoted and translated in every corner of Europe and his influence on the Western imagination is immense. This unabridged prose edition was translated by Samuel Butler, the iconoclastic English author of the Utopian satirical novel Erewhon and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh. The latter was published posthumously as he was afraid to publish it in his lifetime.

Banned for being pornographic and obscene, and for conflicting with community values.
'Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. 'With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester must wear a scarlet 'A' upon her breast, the sin of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name her husband begins his search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect. Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of two very different men, as moral codes and legal imperatives painfully collide. Set in the Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, The Scarlet Letter also sheds light on the nineteenth-century in which it was written, as Hawthorne explores his ambivalent relations with his Puritan forebears. The text of this edition is taken from the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works, the most authoritative critical edition.

Banned in Britain under the Obscenity Publication Act of 1857 because the protagonist had a child out of wedlock and then murdered the rapist who fathered the child.
"Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman" is a compelling and poignant novel by Thomas Hardy that explores the tragic life of Tess, a young and innocent girl from a rural village in Victorian England. The story follows Tess as she navigates the harsh realities of her impoverished existence and becomes entangled in a web of circumstances that lead to her downfall. Despite her purity and unwavering moral compass, Tess faces societal judgments and hardships that test her resilience. Hardy's masterful storytelling delves into themes of fate, injustice, and the oppressive social norms of the time, painting a vivid and haunting portrait of Tess's struggles as she grapples with her own identity and the consequences of her choices. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman" is a timeless classic that examines the human condition with its complex characters and emotional depth, leaving a lasting impact on readers.

Banned for its explicit sexuality and graphic depiction of bodily functions.
With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. James Joyce's astonishing masterpiece, Ulysses, tells of the diverse events which befall Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on 16 June 1904, during which Bloom's voluptuous wife, Molly, commits adultery. Initially deemed obscene in England and the USA, this richly-allusive novel, revolutionary in its Modernistic experimentalism, was hailed as a work of genius by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway. Scandalously frank, wittily erudite, mercurially eloquent, resourcefully comic and generously humane, Ulysses offers the reader a life-changing experience.

Banned for anti-slavery themes and as abolitionist propaganda in the South.
Uncle Tom, a slave on a farm in Kentucky, is sold by his owner Arthur Shelby and forced to travel south down the Mississippi River. As he is sold from one owner to another, his strong faith in God and his loyalty to fellow slaves sustain him. When Tom ends up on a plantation owned by a cruel, abusive man named Simon Legree, a final act of defiance sends Legree over the edge. This unabridged version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's American classic, first published in 1852, exposes the brutality of slavery and stresses the value of faith and the significance of self-sacrifice.

Banned for profanity, sexual references, and use of a derogatory term.
A New York Times bestseller--over one million copies sold!   A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and black-and-white interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.

Banned for offensive language, homosexuality, and sex education.
A 2015 Stonewall Honor Book A groundbreaking work of LGBT literature takes an honest look at the life, love, and struggles of transgender teens. Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

Banned for homosexual overtones and unsuitable for young children.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner--a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace.   In Morrison's acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove--an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.   Here, Morrison's writing is "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (The New York Times).

Banned for portrayal of sex, depiction of the Iranian Revolution and scenes of torture inappropriate for students.
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up as a girl in revolutionary Iran. * "The most original coming-of-age story from the Middle East yet." --People Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.

Banned for sexual material, homosexual themes and "violating state standards to teach the Holocaust accurately."
Journal of a Jewish teenager describes the joys and torments of daily life and typical adolescent thoughts throughout two years spent in hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of Holland.

Banned for violence, language and renouncing of religion.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives. Ender's Game is the winner of the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Banned for LGBTQIA+ content and sexually explicit images.
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. "It's also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." -- SLJ (starred review)

Banned for sexual references and language considered inappropriate for children.
BE WHO YOU ARE. When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl. Melissa thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. Melissa really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part... because she's a boy. With the help of her best friend, Kelly, Melissa comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte -- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.

Banned for violence, profanity, and sexual activity.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. Look for The Testaments, the bestselling, award-winning the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale In Margaret Atwood's dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead's commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid's Tale is a modern classic. Includes an introduction by Margaret Atwood

Banned for offensive language, violence, anti-family, and occult/satanic.
The first novel in the worldwide bestselling series by Suzanne Collins!Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Banned for sexually explicit content, anti-family values, and unsuited to age group.
"It's easy to run out of accolades for this superb series... The dialogue is smart, arch and always rings true, and the visuals, rendered digitally, are alluring and inventive. The Stalk, an eight-eyed, eight-limbed female bounty hunter, remains a creepy favorite." -The New York Times At long last, a deluxe hardcover of the Hugo Award-winning Saga is finally on its way! Collecting the first three trade paperbacks (issues #1-18) of the smash-hit series, this massive edition features a striking new cover, as well as special extras, including never-before-seen sketches, script pages, and a roundtable discussion with the creators about how Saga is really made. Altogether, this hardcover contains over 500 pages for less than fifty bucks! Written by Eisner Award-winning "Best Writer" Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, The Private Eye) and drawn by Harvey Award-winning "Best Artist" Fiona Staples (Mystery Society, North 40) Saga is the story of Hazel, a child born to star-crossed parents from opposite sides of an ever-ending galactic war. Now, Hazel's fugitive family must risk everything tofind a peaceful future in a harsh universe that values destruction over creation. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson return with an Eisner Award-nominated modern fantasy where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods. Revel in the opulence of this over-sized hardback! Revel in it! Collects issues 1 through 11.

Banned for drugs, alcohol, smoking, being sexually explicit, suicide and unsuited for age group.
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

Banned for being too sexual and going against religious beliefs.
Fall in love with the addictive, suspenseful love story between a teenage girl and a vampire with the book that sparked a "literary phenomenon" and redefined romance for a generation (New York Times). Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife -- between desire and danger. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite. It's here! #1 bestselling author Stephenie Meyer makes a triumphant return to the world of Twilight with the highly anticipated companion, Midnight Sun: the iconic love story of Bella and Edward told from the vampire's point of view. "People do not want to just read Meyer's books; they want to climb inside them and live there." -- Time "A literary phenomenon." -- The New York Times

Banned for sexual content.
A "New York Times" Best Seller This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin. One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial bestseller, WATCHMEN has been studied on college campuses across the nation and is considered a gateway title, leading readers to other graphic novels such as V FOR VENDETTA, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and THE SANDMAN series.

It may sound shocking, but even in this current age, books are banned all around the globe. What makes a book inappropriate, even dangerous for public consumption, and who has the power to deem it so? Some governments ban books as a form of censorship. Schools and districts can ban books they consider too racy or inappropriate for their students. Does banning books take away our liberties, attempt to erase history, and impose an agenda? Is the practice actually in our best interest, depending on the circumstance? This balanced volume helps readers to examine this nuanced issue.

Since the first edition was published to acclaim and awards in 1994, librarians have relied on the work of noted intellectual freedom authority Herbert N. Foerstel. This expanded edition presents a thorough analysis of the current state of book banning in schools and public libraries, offering ready reference material on major incidents, legal cases, and annotated entries on the most frequently challenged books. Every section of this work has been significantly rewritten, updated, or expanded to reflect those developments. In-depth accounts of three new landmark book banning incidents are featured, along with a discussion of recent Supreme Court decisions involving censorship on the Internet and in book publishing, and a consideration of their implications for book banning in schools and public libraries. Two new interviews with authors of banned books--David Guterson and Leslea Newman--join the interviews with authors profiled in the first edition, many of which have been updated. The heart of the book is a Survey of Banned Books, revised with annotated entries on the 50 most frequently challenged books for 1996 through 2000; the Harry Potter series tops the list. Finally, all new appendixes feature an updated ALA list of Most Frequently Challenged Books and Authors Through 2000 and graphs that help to clarify key information.

The flow of information through our modern digital world has led to many new issues and controversies. Book Banning and Other Forms of Censorshipexamines how and why schools, special-interest groups, and governments attempt to suppress information in print and online. Compelling text, well-chosen photographs, and extensive back matter give readers a clear look at these complex issues. Features include essential facts, a glossary, additional resources, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, when it was published in April 1939. By May, it was the nation's number one bestseller, but in Kern County, California -- the Joads' newfound home -- the book was burned publicly and banned from library shelves. Obscene in the Extreme tells the remarkable story behind this fit of censorship. When W. B. "Bill" Camp, a giant cotton and potato grower, presided over its burning in downtown Bakersfield, he declared: "We are angry, not because we were attacked but because we were attacked by a book obscene in the extreme sense of the word." But Gretchen Knief, the Kern County librarian, bravely fought back. "If that book is banned today, what book will be banned tomorrow?" Obscene in the Extreme serves as a window into an extraordinary time of upheaval in America -- a time when, as Steinbeck put it, there seemed to be "a revolution . . . going on."

During the period 1900-1940 novels and poems in the UK and US were subject to strict forms of censorship and control because of their representation of sex and sexuality. At the same time, however, writers were more interested than ever before in writing about sex and excrement, incorporatingobscene slang words into literary texts, and exploring previously uncharted elements of the modern psyche.This book explores the far-reaching literary, legal and philosophical consequences of this historical conflict between law and literature. Alongside the famous prosecutions of D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow and James Joyce's Ulysses huge numbers of novels and poems were altered by publishers andprinters because of concerns about prosecution. Far from curtailing the writing of obscenity, however, censorship seemed to stimulate writers to explore it further.During the period covered by this book novels and poems became more experimentally obscene, and writers were intensely interested in discussing the author's rights to free speech, the nature of obscenity and the proper parameters of literature. Literature, seen as a dangerous form of corruption bysome, was identified with sexual liberation by others. While legislators tried to protect UK and US borders from obscene literature, modernist publishers and writers gravitated abroad, a development that prompted writers to defend the international rights of banned authors and books. While theperiod 1900-1940 was one of the most heavily policed in the history of literature, it was also the time when the parameters of literature opened up and writers seriously questioned the rights of nation states to control the production and dissemination of literature.