Books banned by the Vatican
From 1559 to 1966 the Catholic Church kept the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of books Catholics were forbidden to read without permission. It included works of science, philosophy and fiction, from Copernicus and Galileo to Machiavelli, Voltaire and Flaubert. The Index was abolished in 1966.
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.
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Galileo's comparison of the Copernican system, with the Earth orbiting the Sun, and the older Earth-centred system.
Why it was banned: Placed on the Index of Forbidden Books after Galileo's trial by the Roman Inquisition in 1633; it stayed there until 1835.
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.
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Copernicus's account of a universe with the Sun, not the Earth, at its centre.
Why it was banned: Suspended by the Church in 1616 'until corrected', and removed from the Index in 1835.
The Prince
Machiavelli's handbook on how rulers gain and keep power, written around 1513 and published after his death.
Why it was banned: Placed on the Catholic Church's first Index of Forbidden Books in 1559.