To help celebrate Freedom to Read Week in Canada this week (Feb. 26-March 3), the Fisher Library will be focusing on a number of works from our collections that have been controversial in their day, or banned or censored outright. Much of this material has been derived from an exhibition, titled Nihil Obstat, held at the Fisher in 2005 and curated by Fisher Librarian P.J. Carefoote. He later expanded the exhibit catalogue into a book titled Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter (Toronto: Lester, Mason & Begg, 2007).

Much of the exhibit Nihil Obstat focused on books that were listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. First authorized by Pope Paul IV in 1557, the Index (or Index of Forbidden Books in English) is a bibliography of all books prohibited by the Catholic Church. The aim of the list was to protect the morals and faith of the Church faithful by preventing the reading of immoral books or works containing theological errors. The 1564 edition (seen here below) included the works of the “heresiarchs,” and was applied to authors such as Luther and Calvin. The last edition of the Index was issued in 1948, and it remained in effect until 1966.

Later in the 16^th century, the Holy Office developed a variation with the Index Librorum Expurgatorum (below) whose purpose was to assist librarians in the partial censorship of works by otherwise orthodox authors by indicating the exact page numbers and sentences to be expurgated from the offending text using a black ink pen. Without these required emendations, a work could not have remained in circulation in the Catholic World.

Please visit the Fisher web site throughout the week as we highlight books from the Index, as well as Canadian books that have come under scrutiny from various groups.