forbidden books
Censored written works
Forbidden books are works banned or suppressed by authorities—governments, religious institutions, or schools.
The phrase evokes censorship across history, from the Catholic Church's Index of Prohibited Books to modern library challenges.
Forbidden books often deal with sexuality, politics, or ideas deemed dangerous: Banned Book Week celebrates forbidden books.
The label sometimes increases a book's allure.
- obscenityIndecent word or act
- samizdatClandestine dissident publishing
- underground pressRadical countercultural publishing network
- heresyBelief opposing official doctrine
- indecencyOffensive or vulgar behavior
blasphemy · propaganda · sedition · Nazi censorship · thought police · apostasy · pornography · dissent · excommunication · puritanism · subversion · totalitarianism · dogma · moral panic · witch hunt · blacklisting · orthodoxy · dark ages
- Dystopia1984, Nineteen Eighty-Four, dystopian fiction, totalitarianism, Brave New World
- banned books1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lady Chatterley
- censorshipcensored, banned, censors, excision, suppressed
- literary librariessecret archives, hidden knowledge, ancient texts, dusty shelves, reading rooms
- church offensesheresy, apostasy, schism, blasphemy, sacrilege
- occult textsgrimoires, grimoire, Kabbalah, Necronomicon, Sefer Yetzirah
forbidden booksrequired reading
Assigned essential literature
recommended reading · canonical works · sacred texts · textbooks · classics
forbidden bookssacred scriptures
Religious texts considered authoritative
classics · holy books · celebrated works · literary canon · Bible
forbidden, books, forbid, forbade, forbidding, forbiddingly, book, booked, booking