Ulysses — James Joyce

Ulysses endured the longest formal ban of any work on this list — 11 years in the United States alone — before Judge John M. Woolsey's 1933 ruling overturned its obscenity designation, a decision that reshaped publishing law and freed literature from arbitrary moral policing. James Joyce's experimental novel was first suppressed in 1922 after its serialisation in The Little Review, with a New York court declaring it 'smut' for its frank sexual passages. The case established a precedent that protected 30% of later contested books, including works by D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller. Banned in the UK and Ireland until the 1960s, Ulysses sold only 1,000 copies annually during its prohibition but has since sold over 50 million globally. Its density and literary innovation remain unmatched, justifying both its censorship and its liberation.