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The Australian Literature Resource
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The Banned in Australia AustLit Research community and this bibliography collects literary publications that were prohibited as imports into twentieth-century Australia, tracing the main arch of federal publications censorship from 1901 to 1973. The aim of the project is to comprehensively list all titles identified as literary or scholarly that were banned or allowed only restricted circulation by Australian Customs through that period. The bibliography relies on the documented evidence of department and agency practice held by the National Archives of Australia. It has an international scope and includes titles from all over the world, including works by Australian writers published abroad. The bibliography is a cumulative reconstruction of Australia's 'banned list' and makes this record of literary censorship available to the Australian public for the first time. |
READ the INTRODUCTION to Banned in Australia by Marita Bullock and Nicole Moore here.
SEARCH the Banned in Australia subset here.
OR FIND ALL:
History of the Banned in Australia Project
The Banned in Australia Research Community dataset was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project held by Nicole Moore and supported by a Macquarie University Deputy Vice Chancellor's Grant.
Initial research grew from a Margaret George Research Fellowship at the National Archives of Australia. The dataset was initiated by the research of Nicole Moore in 2005, and researched and compiled by Marita Bullock, with Nicole Moore and Monique Rooney (in 2005). It was completed in June 2008.
Banned in Australia includes approximately 500 titles.
Banned titles include:
- literary fiction
- popular and pulp fiction
- non-fiction
- magazines and pamphlets
- erotica and pornography
The Banned in Australia project collects the following information:
- bibliographical data
- biographical details on authors where relevant
- censors' decisions (whether banned or restricted circulation)
- dates each title was banned and the ban lifted (where available)
- government agencies responsible for the banning of each title
Further information on the legal and bureaucratic processes of banning particular titles will be made available where significant.
Acknowledgements
Thanks in particular to the archivists at the Chester Hill, NSW office of the National Archives of Australia for providing support in the location and retrieval of key censorship series. Thank you also to the retrieval, research and exhibition staff of the Canberra office and archivists in the Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane offices of the NAA. Thanks to Kerry Kilner for her enthusiasm for and flexibility about including the bibliography within the AustLit paradigm. Many thanks to Carol Hetherington from AustLit for providing much feedback and support on the entering of bibliographic information into the dataset, and for assisting with the bibliographical research. Her assistance played a critical role in the success and accuracy of the project. Thanks also to Kim Davies for research assistance in the final stages.
Sources used in the compilation of the Banned in Australia bibliography.
Publication Details
Banned in Australia is a separately published work within AustLit.
No part of this work may be reproduced without permission.
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource 2004-
Cataloguing-in-Publication Details
Banned in Australia: a bibliography.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 0 9750867 5 8.
1. Australian censorship - Bibliography.
2. Australian censorship - History and criticism - Bibliography.
I. Bullock, Marita. II. Moore, Nicole.