Archives: Exhibits

Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

Call no. PS1305.A1 1885

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been on the American Library Association’s list of most frequently banned books for many years. Reasons behind the challenges have shifted over time, with initial bans making coded references to morality and language, while contemporary controversy has shifted toward the racial stereotyping and use of racial slurs. 

The novel was first removed from a Concord, MA public library in 1885, shortly after it was released in the United States, with reasoning that is steeped in racial and class bias. A member of the public library committee was quoted as saying, 

I have examined the book and my objections to it are these: ‘It deals with a series of adventures of a very low grade of morality; it is couched in language of a rough, ignorant dialect, and all through its pages there is a systemic use of bad grammar and an employment of rough, course, inelegant expressions. It is also very irreverent. To sum up, the book is flippant and irreverent in its style. It deals with a series of experiences that are certainly not elevating. The whole book is of a class that is more profitable for the slums than it is for respectable people, and it is trash of the veriest sort.’ 

Current debate centers on the contradiction between the anti-racist narrative of the novel and the racial stereotyping of the character Jim, a fugitive from slavery, as well as Twain’s use of the n-word, which appears over 200 times in the book.

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)

Call no. PS3537.I85 J85 1906

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of the harsh conditions, poverty, and hopelessness faced by factory workers in the United States and perpetrated by the business people and politicians in power, was both commended for uncovering the rampant health violations of the meat-packing industry, and also challenged for its socialist message.

Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)

Call no. PS3545.R815 N2 1940

Richard Wright’s Native Son, which exposed the profound impact of oppression and injustice on Black Americans through the very personal lens on its protagonist, Bigger Thomas, has been criticized for racial stereotyping, though most challenges to the book have cited the violence, sex, and profanity in the novel. 

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1942)

Call no. PS3515.E37 F6 1942

Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls Spanish Civil War novel has been banned for being viewed by some as pro-Communist, the U.S. Post Office declaring it non-mailable in 1940. 

Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy (1946)

Call no. PS3507.R55 A44 1946

Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown and the subsequent trial of her lover has been challenged for sexual content. 

D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (1923)

Call no. PR6023.A93 S6 1922

D. H. Lawrence’s semi-autobiographical Sons and Lovers has been challenged for sexual content.