Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/6-books-that-were-banned-when-they-were-published-and-are-now-considered-essential-reading/
There’s a particular irony in the history of literary censorship. The books that authorities tried hardest to suppress are, more often than not, the ones that proved most enduring. Although considered masterpieces today, many literary classics were challenged, banned, and censored worldwide – some for political reasons, others for religious or moral ones. The pattern tends to repeat itself across centuries and continents.
Of the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels published since 1900 in the English language, nine of the top ten have been banned at some point. That’s a remarkable statistic, and it raises an obvious question: what exactly were the censors so afraid of? The six books below offer a pretty clear answer.
Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
James Joyce’s Ulysses, one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, was declared obscene by a U.S. court while it was being published serially in the American literary magazine The Little Review from 1918 until 1920. Ulysses was first published in 1922 in Paris and instantly became an object of smuggling pride and a valuable collector’s item when successfully transported past British and American customs agents. The U.S. Post Office burned issues of the magazine that had run excerpts, and no American publisher was willing to touch the full manuscript.
At issue was whether James Joyce’s novel was obscene. In deciding it was not, District Court…
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-06-26 07:04:00
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