The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — Mark Twain

Banned within weeks of its 1885 publication — a full 72 years before the first challenge to #4 Ulysses — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remains one of the most contested classics in American literature. Mark Twain's novel was initially condemned as 'trash suitable only for the slums' by a Massachusetts library committee, and it has faced ongoing challenges due to its repeated use of a racial slur, appearing over 200 times in the text. Modern critics often overlook the book's anti-racist core: Huck's moral struggle to help the enslaved Jim, a decision that ultimately leads him to reject society's racist norms. School districts have frequently removed it from curricula, sometimes replacing it with edited versions that have sold over 20 million copies. The controversy highlights a deeper cultural divide over how to teach America's racial history.