In the 1630s, England’s infamous “Star Chamber” – sort of a British version of the Spanish Inquisition – banned the printing or sale of “any seditious, scismaticall, or offensive Bookes or Pamphlets.”
The Star Chamber was abolished in 1641. But a few years later, the House of Commons passed a new book “licensing” law that was more about limiting free speech and creating monopolies for government-favored publishers than it was about protecting the rights of authors (or readers).
That made England’s great poet John Milton mad. So, he wrote what is now considered one of the great pleas for freedom of the press – titled Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton For the Liberty of Unlicens’d Printing, To the Parlament [sic] of England.
November 23rd is the anniversary of Milton’s Areopagitica.
It was published on November 23, 1644 and is still quoted today. The most famous line is included in most books of literary and historical quotations:
“As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.”
Milton’s eloquent words failed to persuade the Parliament to rescind its book “licensing” and censorship laws during his lifetime.
Of course, in the centuries since then, censorship of books has significantly decreased – but it has not disappeared.
In fact, during the first eight years of the 21st Century, the American Library Association (ALA) documented 3,736 attempts made to ban books from local libraries here in the United States.
Modern self-appointed censors aren’t just after what might generally be considered as “porn.” Targets of the self-righteous people and groups who want to ban books at their local libraries include many classics, such as:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984 by George Orwell
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
To see more about books targeted by self-appointed censors, visit the “Banned & Challenged Books” section of the ALA’s website.
I think it would make John Milton angry.
