Books banned in France
French censors and courts acted against books seen as attacks on religion, the state or public morals: Candide in 1759, Madame Bovary in 1857 and, in the 1950s, Lolita and other titles from the Paris publisher Olympia Press.
Candide
Voltaire's satire of a naive young man who keeps believing that all is for the best while suffering disaster after disaster.
Why it was banned: Condemned and seized by the authorities in Geneva and Paris soon after publication in 1759, and later placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
Lolita
Nabokov's novel narrated by Humbert Humbert, a man who abuses a twelve-year-old girl; first published in Paris by Olympia Press.
Why it was banned: Banned in France from 1956 to 1958, and copies were seized by UK Customs until its British publication in 1959.
Madame Bovary
Flaubert's novel of a doctor's wife in provincial France whose affairs and debts lead to her ruin.
Why it was banned: Flaubert was prosecuted for offending public morals when the novel was serialised in 1856; he was acquitted in 1857, and the Church placed the novel on its Index in 1864.