Most banned classic novel

Topping the American Library Association's ALA list of most banned or challenged classic novels is The Great Gatsby (1924) by F. Scott Fitzgerald. As recently as 1987, the Baptist College in Charleston, South Carolina, USA, challenged the book because of "language and sexual references".

The ALA describe a "challenge" as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." Since 2001, the ALA has received 3,736 complaints, with the most common challenges for "sexually explicit material" (1,225 complaints). The majority of challenges are submitted by parents.

 

Top Ten banned classics

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

6. Ulysses by James Joyce

7. Beloved by Toni Morrison

8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

9. 1984 by George Orwell

10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner