Review of The Censor's Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia's Banned Books, by Nicole Moore

Abstract

In The Censor's Library Nicole Moore has delivered so much more than a study of Australia's literary censorship regimes; she offers a sophisticated account of the national culture glimpsed through the lens of what successive generations of Australian readers were actively prevented from consuming. In this sense, Moore has produced a fascinating 'lost' or shadow history of what did not get to be a part of Australian culture. She describes the reference library of banned books collected by the Australian censors—its existence long denied and now part of the National Archives of Australia —as a 'negative library', one built with the ironic intent of preventing books from circulating.