8. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
The tale of Humbert Humbert's paedophiliac obsession with a 12 year old girl he names Lolita is one of the most controversial books of all time and has a pretty impressive censorship history. Nabokov wanted to publish it under a pseudonym and the manuscript was turned down by major publishing companies. He instead found a French publisher and went ahead with the book under his own name. The book was published in 1955 with a lot of typos but that didn't stop 5000 copies from selling out. Graham Greene pronounced it as one of the best novels of 1955 in the Sunday Times. This produced a fierce counter reaction in the Sunday Express editor who called it "the filthiest book I have ever read" (how's that for a serious come on to read the book!). A panicked Home Office began to seize copies of the book in December 1956. Hysteria spread quickly and France followed in the UK's footsteps, banning Lolita for two years. The book was published in Denmark and The Netherland to not much fuss. The US publication was awaited with baited breath in 1958, but amazingly not much happened to stop it. 100,000 copies were sold in three weeks. The book continues to provide readers with controversy to this day, now that we know about the effects of childhood sexual abuse, and it is obvious Humbert Humbert is a manipulative child abuser.