Voidly · Verboten · United Kingdom
Banned and restricted books in United Kingdom
69 titles have been banned or restricted in United Kingdom, recorded across 73 dated, source-cited events, most often for sexual content.
Titles
69
Ban events
73
Top reason
Sexual content
Decades active
24
Most-restricted titles
| Title | Author | Year | Events |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ulysses | James Joyce | 1922 | 3 |
| Spycatcher | Peter Wright | 1987 | 2 |
| Fanny Hill | John Cleland | 1748 | 2 |
| Lady Chatterley's Lover | D.H. Lawrence | 1928 | 1 |
| Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | 1955 | 1 |
| The Well of Loneliness | Radclyffe Hall | 1928 | 1 |
| The Anarchist Cookbook | William Powell | 1971 | 1 |
| Boy | James Hanley | 1931 | 1 |
| The Little Red Schoolbook | Jesper Jensen, Søren Hansen | 1969 | 1 |
| The Rainbow | D.H. Lawrence | 1915 | 1 |
| The Adventures of Tintin in the Congo | Hergé | 1930 | 1 |
| Lord Horror | David Britton | 1989 | 1 |
| Inside Linda Lovelace | Linda Lovelace | 1974 | 1 |
| Rights of Man | Thomas Paine | 1791 | 1 |
| The Age of Reason | Thomas Paine | 1794 | 1 |
| Naked Lunch | William S. Burroughs | 1959 | 1 |
| The Social Contract | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 1762 | 1 |
| The Monk | Matthew Lewis | 1796 | 1 |
| Tropic of Cancer | Henry Miller | 1934 | 1 |
| Tropic of Capricorn | Henry Miller | 1939 | 1 |
| The Story of O | Pauline Réage | 1954 | 1 |
| Hubert Selby Jr.: Last Exit to Brooklyn | Hubert Selby Jr. | 1964 | 1 |
| Men Who Hate Women | Laura Bates | 2020 | 1 |
| Heartstopper | Alice Oseman | 2018 | 1 |
| The Black Flamingo | Dean Atta | 2019 | 1 |
| Queerly Autistic | Erin Ekins | 2021 | 1 |
| Pageboy | Elliot Page | 2023 | 1 |
| We Should All Be Feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | 2014 | 1 |
| Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race | Reni Eddo-Lodge | 2017 | 1 |
| Twilight | Stephenie Meyer | 2005 | 1 |
Stated reasons
- Sexual content
- 20
- Obscenity
- 16
- Political content
- 16
- LGBTQ+ content
- 15
- Religious / blasphemy
- 10
- Violence
- 5
- Immorality
- 3
- Other
- 3
- Race / colonialism
- 2
- Drugs / substance use
- 1
By decade
1510s1
1520s1
1550s1
1580s1
1590s1
1610s1
1630s2
1640s3
1670s1
1720s1
1740s1
1780s1
1790s4
1890s1
1910s3
1920s7
1930s3
1950s4
1960s4
1970s4
1980s2
1990s1
2000s1
2020s24
Documented bans
A sample of 50 of 80 recorded events, most severe and most recent first. Each links to its source where available.
The Anarchist Cookbook2021
Lord Horror1991
Spycatcher1987
Spycatcher1985–1988
The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name1977–2008
Inside Linda Lovelace1976
The Little Red Schoolbook1971
Oz, issue 28 (Schoolkids OZ)1971–1971
My Secret Life1969
Hubert Selby Jr.: Last Exit to Brooklyn1966
Naked Lunch1964
The Story of O1956
Lolita1955
September in Quinze1954
Tropic of Capricorn1939
Boy1934
Tropic of Cancer1934
Lady Chatterley's Lover1928
The Well of Loneliness1928
Elmer Gantry1927
Ulysses1923
Family Limitation1923
Ulysses1923
Women in Love1920–1931
Ulysses1918–1936
The Rainbow1915
The Age of Reason1797
The Monk1797
The Social Contract1793
Rights of Man1792
Fanny Hill1749
Venus in the Cloister or The Nun in her Smock1727
An Appeal from the Country to the City1679
The Second Part of Englands New-Chaines Discovered1649
Collection of Speeches1642
Histrio-Mastix: the Players Scourge1634
An Appeal to the Parliament; or Sions Plea against the Prelacie1630
The History of the World1614
Institutes of the Christian Religion1555
Tyndale's New Testament1525
Men Who Hate Women2025
Heartstopper2025
The Black Flamingo2025
Queerly Autistic2025
Pageboy2025
We Should All Be Feminists2025
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race2025
Twilight2025
The Crow2025
The Notebook2025
Source: Verboten, built on the banned-books.org Open Censorship Core (CC BY 4.0). Verboten compilation CC BY 4.0.