10 Literary Classics That Have Been Banned

Since the launch of Banned Books Week in 1982, more than 11,300 works of literature have been
threatened with censorship in schools, bookstores and libraries across the United States, according
to the American Library Association. Get the facts behind 10 classic works of literature that have
been repeatedly pulled from bookshelves around the world.

1. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Not all Americans have found Mark Twain’s Great American Novel so great. Weeks after the satire
was published in 1885, librarians in Concord, Massachusetts, rejected it for being “rough, coarse and
inelegant” and “more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people.” Two decades
later, the book was removed from the Brooklyn Public Library’s shelves in part because “Huck not
only itched but scratched” and “said ‘sweat’ when he should have said ‘perspiration.’” Twain’s 19th-
century racial language has also rankled some 21st-century readers, According to the American
Library Association, the story of Huck and Jim journeying down the Mississippi River was the 14th
most-challenged book between 2000 and 2009.

2. The Call of the Wild

The vicious dog fights, mistreatment of animals and harsh undertones in Jack London’s tale of the
Klondike gold rush have spurred censorship calls since its publication in 1903. However, it was the
leftist political views of the author—who was twice the Socialist Party candidate for mayor of
Oakland, California—rather than the book’s blood and gore that ran “The Call of the Wild” afoul of
fascist authorities in Italy during the 1920s and early 1930s and resulted in the Nazi Party burning
several of London’s socialist-leaning writings in 1933.

3. To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has been repeatedly challenged and banned in
schools amid complaints of profanity, racial epithets and a description of a rape. After a Virginia
school board banned her book in 1966 for being “immoral literature,” an exasperated Lee wrote to a
Richmond newspaper, “To hear that the novel is ‘immoral’ has made me count the years between
now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.” The book was
banned in Lindale, Texas, in 1996 because it “conflicted with the values of the community” and
removed from an Ontario high school’s English class in 2009 because of its racial language. On the
flip side, however, the school board in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, reinstated the novel in 2013
after a 12-year ban.

4. The Grapes of Wrath

Predictably, residents of Kern County, California, were less than thrilled with the unflattering
depiction of their local area in John Steinbeck’s 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and banned it for
being libelous. Less predictable, however, was the reaction of the library board in East St. Louis,
Illinois, who ordered the city’s three copies burned because the “objectionable” language was “not
fit for anyone’s daughter to read.” The classic tale of Dust Bowl migrants was also banned in Kansas
City and Buffalo for its “vulgar words” and sexual references. The American Library Association also
reports that Ireland banned “The Grapes of Wrath” in 1953, and in 1973 Turkish booksellers stood
trial for hawking copies of the book along with other “propaganda unfavorable to the state.”

5. Ulysses
James Joyce’s radical, stream-of-consciousness story of Leopold Bloom’s daylong journey across
Dublin stoked a fiery reaction—literally—on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean after its 1922
publication. According to author Kevin Birmingham’s “The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for
James Joyce’s Ulysses,” government authorities in the United States and England not only banned
what is now considered a modernist masterpiece, they also confiscated and burned more than 1,000
copies. Until a federal judge ruled in 1933 that “Ulysses” was not obscene, Americans were forced to
track down smuggled copies of Joyce’s novel in order to read it.

6. A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel based on his experiences as an ambulance driver on the Italian front
during World War I was banned by Italy’s fascist regime for nearly 20 years because of its depiction
of the country’s terrible defeat at the Battle of Caporetto as well as its anti-militarism theme that led
to its burning by the Nazis in 1933 as a “corrupting foreign influence.” Even before the official
publication of “A Farewell to Arms,” Boston police barred the sale of issues of Scribner’s magazine
that serialized the “salacious” novel, prompting the publisher to respond, “The ban on the sale of the
magazine in Boston is an evidence of the improper use of censorship which bases its objections upon
certain passages without taking into account the effect and purpose of the story as a whole.”

7. Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel based upon his experiences as a prisoner of war in World War II has been
banned repeatedly by schools since its publication in 1969. The American Library Association reports
that towns in New York, Ohio and Florida have banned “Slaughterhouse-Five” because of the
“book’s explicit sexual scenes, violence and obscene language.” In 2011, the Republic, Missouri,
school board unanimously voted to remove the book from library shelves amid complaints it was
profane and incompatible with biblical principles. In 1973, the school district of Drake, North Dakota,
even burned 32 copies of the novel—notable for its depiction of the 1945 Allied fire-bombing of
Dresden—in its high school’s coal furnace.

8. The Catcher in the Rye

Following its 1951 publication, J.D. Salinger’s instant hit about disillusioned teenager Holden
Caulfield became regularly assigned reading in high schools across the country as well as “a favorite
target of censors,” according to the American Library Association, which reports it remained the
19th most-challenged book between 2000 and 2009 due to profanity, blasphemy and sexual
references. According to a biography of Salinger by Raychel Haugrud Reiff, the coming-of-age story
was removed from the high school syllabus in Issaquah, Washington, in 1978 after a citizen
identified 785 profanities and claimed its inclusion was “part of an overall communist plot.”

9. Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman’s poetry collection shocked much of America when the first edition was published in
1855. Its frank depiction of sexuality and homoerotic overtones was far “too sensual” for the
Victorian Age. Yale University President Noah Porter believed “Leaves of Grass” to be the literary
equivalent of “walking naked through the streets.” Nearly every American library refused to
purchase a copy, and the book even cost Whitman his job as a clerk with the Bureau of Indian Affairs
in 1865 after Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read it and found it obscene and immoral.

10. Harry Potter series

Modern-day popular literature is hardly immune from calls for censorship. As quickly as J.K.
Rowling’s series of “Harry Potter” books shot up the best-seller lists, it also rose to top the list of
most banned and challenged books between 2000 and 2009, according to the American Library
Association. The series drew complaints from parents and others about the books’ alleged
occult/satanic theme, religious viewpoint, anti-family approach and violence.