BANNED BOOKS

Banned Books are illegal and selling Banned Books can result in serious criminal offences. The books that are not allowed to be published and released in the market are termed as Banned Books . These books are banned due to some significant social, political or religious cause. For the sake of social security, several scriptures like the ‘Bible' and the ‘Qur'an' were banned in many countries.

Books describing violence, sex or any offensive crime are often considered as Banned Books. If the government considers any book to be referring to any state issue critically, it is banned immediately and selling of that particular book becomes illegal and offensive . The books that consist of any criminal matter are considered to be Banned Books, as they often leave a long term negative impact on the readers' minds.

The children's books that deal with too much of deaths and other crimes are often banned as a precaution against the increasing number of ‘teenage suicides' or ‘copycat crimes'.

There are several Social Organizations that decide on the matter. In many cases the Government or other Official Organizations have the power to censor a book or even ban it. There are several active Censor Boards specially designed for this purpose.

Few examples of Banned Books are described here:

•  Ulysses – the book by James Joyce was banned in United States in 1918 and 1930. They termed it as ‘obscene' and banned it for 15 years.

•  The ‘ Bible ' and ‘Qur'an' was banned in Soviet Union from 1926 to 1956. Many of the editions were even burnt and destroyed.

•  ‘ Lady Chatterley's Lover' by D.H. Lawrence was banned in the United States and UK until 1960s.

•  ‘ Black Beauty ' a novel by Anna Sewell was banned in South Africa due to the use of the word ‘black'.

•  ‘ The Communist Manifesto ' by Karl Marx was banned in several anti-communist countries. It was also banned in the United States during the ‘Red Scare'.

•  ‘ The Tropic of Cancer' a fiction novel by Henry Miller was banned in US in the 1930's for vulgarity.

•  An illustrated version of the ‘ Little Red Riding Hood' was banned in two California schools in 1989.

The books that are gladly accepted in a country can be considered as Banned Books in another as it all depends on the social and political structure of that particular country.