Denmark
Denmark maintained obscenity restrictions through much of the 20th century, with works such as Story of O and Lolita banned for periods. Denmark was among the first Western countries to fully liberalise its obscenity laws, abolishing restrictions on written material in 1967 — a watershed that influenced other countries. Denmark today has some of the strongest press freedom protections in the world.
Bans by year
Banned books
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, whom he sexually molests after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores. The novel was originally written in English and first published in Paris in 1955 by Olympia Press. Lat
Government / national · 1956 · lifted
The Story of O
Pauline Réage
Published in 1954 under the pseudonym Pauline Réage — later revealed to be Anne Desclos — this French novel depicts a woman's willing submission to increasingly extreme sexual domination. Seized by French police and prosecuted for obscenity, it nonetheless won the Prix des Deux Magots in 1955. Its exploration of female desire, submission, and identity became one of the founding texts of serious literary erotic fiction; its authorship by a woman complicated critical attempts to classify it as straightforward degradation.
Government / national · 1967 · lifted
Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
A stream-of-consciousness story of a poverty-stricken young American, living in Paris.
Government / national · 1934 · lifted