1. Literary Censorship Highlights (From Tabula Rasa #3, 1994)
585 BC
The fabulist Æsop is flung from a high rock by the priests of Delphi, an execution for sacrilege.
443 BC
The office of Censor is created in the Roman Republic. The duty of the position was to collect
statistics and patrol their accuracy.
Meanwhile, in Athens, Plato is theorising the position of literature in The Republic. 'The poet shall
compose nothing contrary to the ideas of the lawful, just, or beautiful or good, which are allowed in
the State; nor shall he be permitted to show his compositions to any private individual, until he shall
have shown them to the appointed censors and the guardians of the law, and they are satisfied with
them.'
398 BC
And at the height of the Peloponnesian War, Aristophanes produces his satire Lysistrata, the
parliament of women. The Athenian ruler Cleophon calls for his deportment as an alien for producing
morally offensive material. The way Aristophanes satirised him may just have been a factor.
17 AD
One of the most popular poets of the new Roman Imperium, Publius Ovidius Naso or 'Ovid', is
banished from Rome after publishing the Ars Amatoria (your Latin's good enough for that). This was
conceivably an excuse; he writes that 'two crimes, a poem and a blunder have brought me to ruin. I
must keep silent.'
1235
The Inquisition is established by Pope Gregory IX to patrol and enforce the orthodoxy of the Christian
faith. The Inquisition, over the next four hundred years, practises an extremely direct form of
censorship involving the examination of published works, their judgement of heretical content or
otherwise, and the seeking out and examination of the authors. If an idea did not fit in with established
church law, it could not be circulated. Writers such as Giordono Bruno, in 1600, and Lucilio Vanini,
1619, were burned along with their works.
1554
The first of a new style of novel, the 'picaresque', is published in Spain by an anonymous author. La
Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y sus Fortunas y Adversidades is placed on Pius IV's list of banned
books, for immorality and anti-clerical statements.
1571
Paul IV issues the first formal Index Librorum Prohibitorum, including such works as De
Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Copernicus and the Dialoga of Galileo.
1660
In England A Proclamation for Calling In, and Suppressing of Two Books Written by John Milton. The
books concerned are Milton's Eikonklastes (a justification of Charles I's execution) and Pro Populo
Defensio (In Defence of the People of England).
1759
The Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire Raisonne Des Sciences, Des Arts et de Metiers, is placed on that
year’s papal Index. The project of a group of French intellectuals, including Jean-Jaques Rousseau,
Denis Diderot and Francois Arout le Voltaire, the entry most likely to have been the trouble was
'Cannibalism, see Eucharist'.
1785
Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais has his extremely popular play La folle Journèe (The Crazy
Day), banned for raising the issue of droit et signeur. Also known as Le Mariage de Figaro, the ban
was lifted by the Duke of Vienna in 1786 to allow performance of an opera version by Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart.

2. 1796
An English 'Society for the Suppression of Vice' is formed and succeeds in having The Monk banned.
This was the second edition, wherein the author revealed himself as a well-regarded Member of
Parliament, Matthew Lewis. The exalted position of the author appears to have been the motivation.
1801
French government forces arrest the Marquis de Sade at the house of his publisher. Copies of the
notorious Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu, published in 1791, are also seized. This book remained
banned in France, certainly into the 1960s. The works of this author have, as a rule, been a mainstay of
the debate on censorship since they were first published.
1818
A member of that English Society for the Suppression of Vice was one Thomas Bowdler, who in this
year published The Bowdler Family Shakespere, excised of all 'words and expressions... which cannot
with propriety be read aloud in a family'.
1873
In America, the 'Comstock Act' is passed by Congress, criminalising the depositing of 'obscene, lewd
or lascivious book or other publication of indecent character' in the US mail. The bill was lobbied for
by Anthony Comstock, founder and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
1877
Annie Besant stands trial in England for the printing and distribution of The Fruits of Philosophy, a
pamphlet on birth control described as 'indecent, lewd and obscene'.
1917
The periodical The Little Review begins publishing James Joyce's novel 'about the whole of life',
Ulysses, in serial form. Charges of obscenity follow and stick. The Shakespere and Company
bookshop in Paris nonetheless prints the first full edition in 1922; an edition not permitted to be
imported into England or America.
1939
World War II. Lots. It is interesting to note that, aside from the usual propaganda and cultural purity
issues, works of fictional horror were dissaproved of on both sides of the Atlantic on the grounds they
would damage morale.
1954
The American Senate commences an inquiry, and brings to court Entertaining Comics, for producing
titles such as Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror. The trial was incited by publication of Dr
Fredric Wertham's book, The Seduction of the Innocents: The Influence of Comic Books on Today's
Youth.
1989
Salmon Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses was deemed an insult to Islam and banned in Islamic
counties, whilst copies were burnt in England. Not content with this, the Ayatollah Khomeini placed a
death sentence on the author's head, forcing him into hiding. At least they didn't throw him off a rock.
That's progress for you.
Timeline of Literary Censorship in Canada
1694
Molière’s comedy Tartuffe was condemned by Bishop Jean Baptiste de la Croix Chevrière de Saint-
Vallier of Quebec. In his sentence the bishop declared that all such comedies were not only
dangerous, but also evil and criminal. To ensure that inappropriate entertainments of this sort were not
repeated in the colony, Chevrière offered the cash-strapped governor one hundred pistols in return for
banning the offensive work, a gift that was happily accepted
1847

3. The passing of the Customs Act which prohibited the importation of “books and drawings of an
immoral or indecent character.”
1895
The creation of the first Canadian list of books not to be imported into Canada, including 47 titles; by
1957 there were over one thousand.
1914
The passing of The War Measures Act provided for the “censorship and control and suppression of
publications, writings, maps, plans, photographs, communication and means of communication.”
Particularly severe was Chief Censor Ernest J. Chambers’ ban of 253 foreign titles, as well as the
suppression of several Canadian newspapers including the Sault Ste. Marie Express, Le Bulletin of
Montreal, Quebec City’s La Croix, and Victoria Week which had questioned the government’s wartime
policies.
1919
The extension of the War Measures Act ostensibly allowed for the reconstruction of the faltering
Canadian economy. As a result numerous leftist books and journals were banned from importation.
While some Canadian journals wthe Chief Censor was less successful in prosecuting organizations
willing to print similar materials inside the country. In 1919, for example, the Socialist Party of
Canada published an edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party using funds from the bequest of
late party member George Whitehead of Vancouver.
1919
In the wake of the Winnipeg Strike, Section 98 was added to the Criminal Code establishing a twenty
year prison term for anyone involved in the production or distribution of printed materials that
advocated or defended the use of force or terrorism to achieve political or economic change.
1923
James Joyce’s Ulysses banned from importation into Canada. The ban was lifted in 1949.
1937
In Quebec, Maurice Duplessis’ government passed the “Padlock Law” making it illegal to propagate
Communism in print.
1937
The Alberta government passed the “Alberta Press Act” requiring newspapers to publish free of charge
statements furnished by the Social Credit Board chairman that related to government policies. Editors
had to print up to one full page of text every day a newspaper was printed if needed by the Party. The
Act also demanded that newspapers divulge the names of anyone involved in the writing of editorials.
Penalties included suspension of publication and bans against journalists.
1939
Passing of The War Measures Act and the Defence of Canada Regulations which came into effect in
September 1939. As with World War I, censorship focused on the protection of military secrets,
national safety, the prosecution of the war abroad, and the maintenance of morale at home. Contrary
to common law tradition, the burden of proof fell on the person who was charged with any violation of
the regulations.
1949
Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead banned in Canada.
1954
The federal government defined “obscenity” in the Criminal Code, amending the definition five years
later to state that “any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex,
or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence,
shall be deemed to be obscene.”

4. 1960
The uncensored version of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover banned from Canada. The ban was
lifted in 1962.
1970
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act to deal with the perceived threat that the
F.L.Q. posed to peace in Canada generally and Quebec in particular. The Act limited the ability of
newspapers and magazines to report events with surprisingly little criticism at the time although the
Act allowed for the “censorship and the control and suppression of publications, writings, maps, plans,
photographs, communications and means of communication.”
1971
Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women is removed from the shelves of a Peterborough High School
leading to the establishment of Freedom to Read Week in Canada.
1976
A group of Lakefield, Ontario parents united under the banner of the “Citizens in Defence of
Decency”, demanding that Laurence’s The Diviners be removed from schools on the grounds that it
was “unsavory pornography” promoting “degradation, indecency and immorality”. Although their
demands were ultimately rejected, another challenge came in 1985 by another group who
acknowledged that they had not read the book in its entirety.
1982
With the appearance of the Canadian Charter of Rights limitations on literary expression become far
more difficult, though not impossible, to justify.
1989
During Freedom to Read Week Canada becomes the only Western Deomcracy to ban the importation
and sale of The Satanic Verses.
2000
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is removed from numerous school libraries across Canada,
particularly in Newfoundland, Ontario, and Alberta.
2007
Peel's Catholic board pulled the award-winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars from high school
library shelves after one parent complained about its sexual content.