Topic: Banned Books Week — Classics Banned or Challenged

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

• Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire
  • Banned in 1857 for eroticism, and, according to the judges, poems that “necessarily lead to the excitement of the senses.”
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: 
  • Banned for alleged promotion of drug use and portrayal of anthropomorphized animals.
• Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
  • Banned for its criticism of the medieval church, as well as its obscene language and sexual content.
• Howl by Allen Ginsberg
  • Challenged in a famous 1957 obscenity trial for its language and content about drug use and sexuality.
• Amores (Loves) & Ars amatoria (Art of Love) by Ovid
  • Banned, challenged, and burned for sexual content.
• A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
  • Banned for encouraging bad behavior and addressing topics some deemed inappropriate for children.
• First Folio by William Shakespeare
  • Several plays banned for profane language, sexual content, violence, political implications, and more.
• Dlatego żyjemy (That’s What We Live For) by Wislawa Szymborska
  • Banned in 1949 for political content during Stalinist Poland.
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
  • Famously “banned in Boston” in 1882 for sexual content.

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