Voidly · Verboten · Reason
Books banned for immorality
4,797 titles have been banned or restricted for immorality across 47 countries — one of eleven stated grounds tracked across the censorship record.
Titles
4,797
Countries
47
Reason
Immorality
Most-banned for immorality
Ranked by the number of distinct countries that banned or restricted the title citing this reason.
| Title | Author | Year | Countries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madame Bovary | Gustave Flaubert | 1857 | 3 |
| Woman at Point Zero | Nawal El Saadawi | 1975 | 2 |
| The Yacoubian Building | Alaa Al Aswany | 2002 | 2 |
| The Story of Zahra | Hanan al-Shaykh | 1980 | 2 |
| The Sorrows of Young Werther | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | 1774 | 2 |
| The Red and the Black | Stendhal | 1830 | 2 |
| The Peaceful Pill Handbook | Philip Nitschke | 2006 | 2 |
| The Hunchback of Notre-Dame | Victor Hugo | 1831 | 2 |
| The Hidden Face of Eve | Nawal El Saadawi | 1977 | 2 |
| The 'Genius' | Theodore Dreiser | 1915 | 2 |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger | 1951 | 2 |
| Sex | Madonna | 1992 | 2 |
| Portnoy's Complaint | Philip Roth | 1969 | 2 |
| Peyton Place | Grace Metalious | 1956 | 2 |
| My Dark Vanessa | Kate Elizabeth Russell | 2020 | 2 |
| Married Love | Marie Stopes | 1918 | 2 |
| Lullaby | Chuck Palahniuk | 2002 | 2 |
| Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel García Márquez | 1985 | 2 |
| Julián Is a Mermaid | Jessica Love | 2018 | 2 |
| I am Jazz | Jazz Jennings | 2014 | 2 |
| Heroes | Robert Cormier | 1998 | 2 |
| Fifty Shades of Grey | E L James | 2011 | 2 |
| Fifty Shades Freed | E L James | 2011 | 2 |
| Fifty Shades Darker | E L James | 2012 | 2 |
| Death Note | Tsugumi Ohba | 2005 | 2 |
| Candy | Mason Hoffenberg, Terry Southern | 1958 | 2 |
| Ars Amatoria | Ovid | -2 | 2 |
| Angel | James Patterson | 2024 | 2 |
| And Tango Makes Three | Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell | 2005 | 2 |
| An American Tragedy | Theodore Dreiser | 1925 | 2 |
| The American Roommate Experiment | Elena Armas | 2022 | 2 |
| Agostino | Alberto Moravia | 1944 | 2 |
| After | Amy Efaw | 2009 | 2 |
| A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo | Jill Twiss | 2018 | 2 |
| Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom | John Follain | 2002 | 1 |
| Zombies vs. Unicorns | Justine Larbalestier | 2010 | 1 |
| Zombies Don't Cry | Rusty Fischer | 2022 | 1 |
| Zom-B: Gladiator | Darren Shan | 2014 | 1 |
| Ziggy, Stardust and Me | James Brandon | 2019 | 1 |
| Zia Erases the World | Bree Barton | 2022 | 1 |
| Zenobia July | Lisa Bunker | 2019 | 1 |
| Zenn Diagram | Wendy Brant | 2017 | 1 |
| Zen Shorts | Jon J. Muth | 2005 | 1 |
| Zen and the Art of Faking It | Jordan Sonnenblick | 2007 | 1 |
| Zaman Kegila-gilaan | — | — | 1 |
| Zainab Srikandi Cucu Baginda Muhammad S.A.W | Nurfaridah Rubani | — | 1 |
| Yu Tang Chun | Sung Yu | — | 1 |
| Youths' Study Problems | Yang Kuei Tsang | — | 1 |
| Youth Songs | Chou Hsiang | — | 1 |
| Youth Culture and Ideological Training | Ai Han-Sung | — | 1 |
Where immorality is most cited
| Country | Titles |
|---|---|
| United States | 4,004 |
| Malaysia | 611 |
| Iran | 40 |
| Ireland | 26 |
| Belarus | 15 |
| Tanzania | 13 |
| New Zealand | 13 |
| Saudi Arabia | 11 |
| France | 9 |
| Italy | 8 |
| Vatican City (Holy See) | 7 |
| China | 6 |
| India | 5 |
| Spain | 5 |
| Canada | 5 |
| Portugal | 4 |
| Kuwait | 4 |
| Germany | 4 |
| United Kingdom | 3 |
| Egypt | 3 |
Source: Verboten, built on the banned-books.org Open Censorship Core (CC BY 4.0). Verboten compilation CC BY 4.0.