Here are some of the most well-known books that were subject to the act of censorship and still managed to make their mark through history, proving that words hold more power than silence and that nothing will ever stop humankind to learn, grow and think.
George Orwell's ‘Animal Farm’ (1945)’ was banned by the Soviets for exposing the brutalities and violent crimes of communism through satire.
The book remains banned in countries such as Cuba and North Korea.
Famously remembered in this book is the line “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others” which still holds a significant weight when thinking about today’s happenings on both a political and social scale.
pic - penguin publishing
Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer (1934) was banned by the U.S government for nearly thirty years for the reason that it was challenging models of sexual morality. The story was an autobiographical account of Miller’s life in the 1920s in Paris. This book despite the ban pioneered the existence of explicitly sexual narratives and stories in the future.
picture -penguin publishing
DH Lawrence ‘Lady’s Chatterley’s Lover’ (1928) was banned in the UK for obscenity under the Obscene Publication Act, and in the United States in 1929 for the same reasons, but since being tried it was at the centre of a groundbreaking social and sexual revolution. The story tells the affair between Lady Chatterley and the family gamekeeper revolution. It was also subject to the most famous literary trial in 1960.
To think that on the first day of publication after the ban was lifted, in the UK only it sold over 200.000 copies on the first day
picture - 1959 US 'unexpurgated' edition
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