Home > Non-fiction > The Censor's Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia's Banned Books

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Category: Non-fiction,Academic

Release Date: 30/01/2012

Pages: 464

ISBN: 978 0 7022 3916 8

The Censor's Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia's Banned Books

Author: Nicole Moore

AUD $ 39.95

A history of book censorship in Australia – what we couldn’t read, didn’t know, and why!

For much of the twentieth century, Australia banned more books and more serious books than most other English-speaking or Western countries, from the Kama Sutra through to Huxley’s Brave New World and Joyce’s Ulysses.

The Censor’s Library is the first comprehensive examination of Australian book censorship, based around the author’s discovery of the secret ‘censor’s library’ in the National Archive – 793 boxes of banned books, prohibited from the 1920s to the 1980s.

As it has for much of Australia’s history, censorship continues to attract heated debate, from the Henson affair to the national internet feed. But federal publications censorship has been a largely secret affair for most of the century, deliberately kept from the knowledge of the public.

The Censor’s Library is a provocative account of this scandalous history. Combining scholarship with the narrative tension of a thriller, Nicole Moore exposes the secret history of censorship in Australia.

Reviews

‘The Censor's Library is enlightening, amusing and infuriating with every turn of the page. Moore's straight-woman stance is the perfect amplifier for the stuffiness, bigotry and hilarious philistinism of our self-appointed moral gatekeepers.’ Weekend Australian

‘This book charts the farcical bureaucracy involved in keeping us a nation pure in thought and deed.’ Herald Sun

‘Australian book censorship is part of our trade, cultural and political history and is well analysed in this comprehensive, illuminating and highly readable study.’ Bookseller Publisher

‘Professor Moore's book is a work of scholarship as much as it is an entertaining, but serious tale, in places quite comic. One can read this virtuously without threat of moral contagion, but at the risk of the occasional giggle.’ Canberra Times

‘The Censor's Library is a much more substantial work, analysing in forensic detail the major controversies and teasing out the narrative of how such restrictions, and the ensuing protests, shaped Australia's cultural, intellectual and literary landscape … [It] tackles a complex subject with admirable scholarly panache. Moore's lively history will undoubtedly become the definitive reference …’ Sydney Morning Herald – ‘Review of the Week’

Listen to Nicole Moore discuss The Censor's Library on ABC Radio National Books and Arts Daily.

‘This is a standout example of how academic material can be presented to the less esoteric reader. The subject is unveiled at a lively pace and fascinating examples and asides abound.’ Courier-Mail

‘Moore provides a powerful and informative story of a changing Australia.’ Sun-Herald

‘Highly entertaining.’ Launceston Examiner

‘A fantastic history of censorship in Australia.’ Newcastle Herald

‘This accessible, well researched story focuses on an unusual aspect of our social history.’ Illawarra Mercury

‘A fascinating, well-written and seemingly exhaustive work of scholarship.’ Australian Writer

‘The Censor’s Library makes for a comprehensive and enlightened guide.’ North Melbourne Books blog

‘A fascinating and important work.’ m/c Reviews