DH Lawrence's novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was banned for obscenity in numerous countries, but small private printings turned it into an underground sensation in the late 1920s.

How banning a book ensured its success

This article explore the controversial history of DH Lawrence's novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Learn about how it was banned in several countries and the six-day trial in the UK that lifted the ban. Soon after going on sale, the novel became a bestseller and a significant cultural touchstone.

Writer DH Lawrence argued that the novel is the height of literature

DH Lawrence was a 20th-century writer, known for his novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” In his essay “Why the Novel Matters,” written in 1925, Lawrence argues that the novel, more than any other literary form, allows readers to experience the whole of human experience, writing that “only in the novel are all things given full play.”

'Leaves of Grass' was banned several times for obscenity.

The 'Howl' obscenity trial changed American publishing

The "Howl" obscenity trial is one of the most significant in American publishing, affirming that material with the "slightest redeeming social importance" cannot be considered "obscene." In the process, it permits artists, like Allen Ginsberg, to use the language they see fit to express themselves.

Many critics panned Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' when it was released

The 1847 novel, initially published under a pseudonym, was seen by some early readers as obscene and cruel. One particularly brutal review from Graham's Lady's Magazine read, "How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery."

'Huckleberry Finn' has a long history of book bans

Twain’s most famous novel was first banned in March 1885. Librarians in Concord, Massachusetts, called it “suitable only for the slums.” Since then, it’s been banned many more times, mostly because of how it deals with race. In recent decades, its use of the N-word, has led to its removal.

The first 'Evil Dead' film significantly removed violent scenes in order to earn an 'X' rating in the United Kingdom, prohibiting it from viewers under 18, though police still seized it from video stores as if it were illegal contraband.

Diving into 'The Flame and the Flower,' the book that popularized 'bodice ripper' romance

The 1972 Kathleen E. Woodiwiss novel helped create the romance subgenre featuring historical settings and intense, steamy sex scenes. It was an under-the-radar sensation, quietly selling millions of copies while simultaneously courting controversy for its portrayals of rape. In this essay, Jeannette Cooperman revisits the book to see how it reads 50 years after its publication.

Ginsberg's 'Howl' portrayed people outside the American mainstream

The poem’s portraits of people on society's fringes—including vivid descriptions of drug use, psychiatric wards, and homosexuality—led to its seizure by US Customs agents and the arrest of its publisher Ferlinghetti. The American Civil Liberties Union defended both in a landmark trial that ruled the book was not obscene.

Circulating libraries helped the novel's popularity surge

As literacy rates began to rise in the 19th century, so did the demand for reading materials. The only problem? Newspapers and books weren’t cheap, and newly literate middle-class families struggled to afford literature. That changed when booksellers began offering small fees for patrons who decided to borrow rather than purchase books. This was eventually called a circulating library, an innovation that would satisfy the burgeoning readership of novels and increase literacy rates further.

'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' published in 1852, was the second best-selling book of the 19th century, after the Bible.

'Fahrenheit 451' is a perennially banned dystopian story

This late-in-life interview with Ray Bradbury, author of “Fahrenheit 451,” details the book’s origins, providing background for one of the most popular titles in dystopian literature. As a book lover, Bradbury was horrified by the book burnings of Nazi Germany and imagined a version of the United States where firemen were censors, protecting their fellow citizens from literature’s harmful ideas. “We are a democracy of readers,” Bradbury explains. “And we should keep it that way.”

Check out cheap, mass-market, and often trashy editions of classic books from Ralph Ellison, James Joyce, Jane Austen, and many more.

'Pride and Prejudice' initially received a form rejection from a publisher

Jane Austen's most popular novel—it has sold over 20 million copies and been adapted numerous times for the screen—was rejected by publisher Thomas Cadell in 1797, who responded to Austen's father's offer to send the manuscript with a curt form letter: "Declined by return of post."

The Vatican included 'The Second Sex' on its list of forbidden books

In 1956, the Vatican added Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" and her novel "The Mandarins" to its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which already included every book by her partner Jean-Paul Sartre. The Vatican newspaper explained that de Beauvoir's books, which advocated for birth control and criticized marriage, included "the harmful atmosphere of a certain existentialist philosophy" that contained a "hidden poison." (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

EL James' 'Fifty Shades of Grey' was originally 'Twilight' fan fiction

The first volume in the popular erotic romance series was originally called "Master of the Universe" and focused on the main characters of "Twilight," the popular vampire series by Stephanie Meyer. After it became a hit in fan fiction communities, James removed the references to "Twilight" and changed the title. It would go on to be the fastest-selling paperback of all time in the United Kingdom and lead to additional books and film adaptations.

Kurt Vonnegut's letter to the school board that banned his book

In 1973, a high school English teacher in North Dakota taught Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," the classic time-hopping novel about World War II and the bombing of Dresden. The head of the school board was outraged by what he considered to be obscene material in Vonnegut's novel and ordered all of the students' copies of the book burned. When Vonnegut caught wind of those plans, he wrote this letter to the school board, protesting the decision.

Jane Austen's books were published anonymously during her life

In 19th-century England, novel-writing was considered unseemly, especially for women. Considering that, Austen's father and brother dealt directly with Jane's publishers. The author's name, meanwhile, was not attached to her books: "Sense and Sensibility," her first published novel, was simply labeled as being "By a Lady."

The novel broke new ground by offering realistic stories

In this brief interview, Terry Castle, an English professor at Stanford, explains the origins of the early British novel. Castle details how the novel was produced for a newly literate middle class interested in recognizable characters and stories “about life as they knew it” rather than Greek and Roman myths or medieval romances. She also explains why a newly enfranchised female demographic was attracted to the fiction of writers like Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf.

The Library of America, a reissue series that began in 1982, repackaged classic works of American writers at a low cost to encourage readers to engage with what it considered the American literary canon.

The BBC banned the Beatles' song 'A Day in the Life' for 5 years, fearing it encouraged drug use.

Salman Rushdie's 1988 religious satire, 'The Satanic Verses,' led to a government-sponsored death threat from Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The history of Samuel Richardson's 'Pamela,' which some consider the first romance novel

The 1740 novel will likely strike modern readers as odd, to say the least. Its titular character, a 15-year-old maidservant, is harassed by her boss, who finally changes his ways and asks for her hand in marriage, which is presented as a happy ending. As this analysis of the text makes clear, though, "Pamela" established a template for the romance genre, even if contemporary writers have been happy to break it.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, readers returned to Camus' 'The Plague'

The 1947 novel, about a city in Algeria that enacts a city-wide quarantine to battle a deadly outbreak, captured readers' attention in the early months of 2020. In the UK, over 2,000 copies of the book were sold in March of that year, over six times what it had sold the month before.

Twain read (and lampooned) classic literature

Ever the ironist, Twain claimed to have “ no liking for novels or stories.” Obviously, that was untrue: He read widely, devouring books by Charles Dickens, slave narratives, and texts on astronomy. He also loved John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which he called “something everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

Jackson's 'The Lottery' inspired a trove of angry letters to The New Yorker

The writer's short story "The Lottery" is widely taught in American schools and with good reason—it's a masterful and horrifying story about the dangers of blind tradition. After its initial publication in The New Yorker, 150 readers wrote letters calling the story "outrageous," "gruesome," and "utterly pointless." Listen to a reading of the story below and a discussion of why it provoked such outraged responses.

Twain ruthlessly criticized other writers

The writer was known for lambasting popular writers of his time, including Jane Austen and Robert Louis Stevenson. One of his most famous takedowns is “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences,” an essay that simultaneously mocks Cooper’s popular adventure tales and satirizes the pretentiousness of literary criticism. Remarking on Cooper’s novel “The Deerslayer,” Twain wrote, “its conversations are—oh! Indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.”

A linguist argues Jane Austen's language is what defines her fiction

While many readers love Austen's novels for their characters and their romantic plots, Chi Luu argues that many people (including literary luminaries like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Waldo Emerson) underestimate how her adept wordplay, sense of irony, and memorable turns of phrase are what have made readers fall in love with her fiction for centuries.

14 famous authors trash-talking classic books

Just because something's considered a "classic" doesn't mean it's universally loved. Even the world's most respected writers don't agree on what defines great literature. Look no further than this list of writers criticizing canonical texts, like Charlotte Brontë deriding Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" or Virginia Woolf on James Joyce's "Ulysses." The most succinct might be Aldous Huxley on Jack Kerouac's "On the Road": "I got a little bored after a time. I mean, the road seemed to be awfully long."

Lucasfilm discouraged fan fiction that sexualized its characters

The self-published fan fiction zines of the '60s, '70s, and '80s were obscure enough that they rarely attracted the attention of the copyright holders of their source material. But Lucasfilm, the production company behind the "Star Wars" films, threatened legal action against fans who published X-rated stories and "homosexual expressions of love" featuring its characters.

The Supreme Court's first major free-speech ruling rested on a legal standard that was later overturned

In Schenck v. United States (1919), the court introduced the "clear and present danger" test—permitting the government to restrict speech that posed an immediate threat to public safety. Although the doctrine was later replaced, the ruling upheld the conviction of a man who had distributed anti-draft pamphlets.

Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity seven times

The first was in 1961, after performing at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco. Subsequent arrests were in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. He died of a morphine overdose in 1966, a year and a half after being found guilty of his New York charge.

Jane Austen remains a literary force 250 years later

Both her books and adaptations of them for film continue to sell, with 2025 seeing the highest book sales since 2009. Critics claim her deep, witty exploration of relationships and social norms are the basis of her enduring relevance.

Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' turned the fantasy genre upside down

A lot of 19th-century British fantasy was often stiff; its children’s literature was often overly didactic. Carroll’s novel—about a young girl who falls into an unusual world full—was neither, offering vivid, psychedelic imagery and seemingly nonsensical word games.

Why school boards ban dystopian books

Journalist Ali Velshi analyzes the lasting appeal of Lois Lowry's "The Giver" and George Orwell's "1984," two dystopian novels that have courted controversy since their publications. Beyond his interpretations, though, Velshi wants to understand why school boards perennially ban these books—and what makes them so fascinating for adolescent readers. In his search, he talks to Lowry about the lasting influence of her novel and to Orwell expert James McCallister about the prescient political portrait in "1984."

Innovative novelist Don DeLillo wrote an erotic hockey novel under a pseudonym

The acclaimed writer—known for books like "White Noise" and "Underworld"—published "Amazons" in 1980 under the pen name Cleo Birdwell. The story claimed to be a memoir, written by a woman who secretly joined an NHL team. The ruse went beyond the text, too, with a female model posing as Birdwell for promotional events.

100 different book covers for Virginia Woolf's ‘Mrs. Dalloway’

Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel "Mrs. Dalloway" is among the most influential books in the English language and a preeminent example of British modernism. It's been published by several imprints and in multiple countries over the last century, creating a fascinatingly diverse collection of covers. This Literary Hub article lists 100 of the best, illustrating Woolf's lasting relevance and, curiously, the many ways her book can be interpreted.

Horror exploded as a commercial literary genre in the late 1960s

Ira Levin’s 1967 novel “Rosemary’s Baby” showed publishers horror was a viable commercial genre. That was proven again in 1971, with William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist” and again in 1974 with Stephen King’s “Carrie.” The books dealt with societal fears (the occult, drugs, sex) during a time of political upheaval.

The printing press spread novels widely

Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1440 changed how writing was reproduced. It allowed multiple manuscripts to be copied via movable type rather than by hand, making more literature more widely available. Over time, that change caused literacy rates to rise, creating a market for even more literature.