Top 20 most influential banned books revealed

Academic Book Week has revealed the 20 most influential banned books and launched a public vote to find the public’s number one.

Selected by academic booksellers across the UK and Ireland in association with Index on Censorship, the public are now invited to vote on the most influential banned book, with the winning book revealed during Academic Book Week, which this year takes place from 4th March to 9th March.

PRH leads the way with 13 titles on the list which features Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Academic Book Week’s most influential banned books are:
1984 by George Orwell (PRH)
A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller (PRH)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (PRH)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (PRH)
Country Girls by Edna O’Brien (Faber)
His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman (Scholastic)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Virago, Hachette)
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence (PRH)
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (PRH)
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (OUP)
Rights of Man by Thomas Paine (OUP)
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (PRH)
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (PRH)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (W&N, Orion, Hachette)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (PRH)
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (PRH)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (PRH)
Ulysses by James Joyce (PRH)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (Faber)
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (PRH)

Building on the success of previous years, Academic Book Week 2019 is being coordinated by the Booksellers Association in partnership with University College London.

Emma Bradshaw, head of campaigns at the Booksellers Association, said: “Academic Book Week’s Top 20 Most Influential Banned Books will spark debate in Academic Book Week and beyond. Each of the books on this shortlist has been hugely successful, despite attempts to ban them and we look forward to seeing the result of the public vote.”

The public vote is open from today (Friday 1st March) until 11:59pm on Wednesday 6th March to find the book that has been most influential: www.acbookweek.com/bannedbooks.