The Forbidden Books of Youth
New York Times
Published: June 6, 1993

What was the first “forbidden” book you read and what were the circumstances under which you read it? The editors of the Book Review asked 14 men and women to share their secrets of fantasies inspired, expectations dashed, wisdom gained and the lonely knowledge that only comes in the dead of night with a flashlight in hand and a head under the covers. Here are the responses.

Elmore Leonard

In the seventh or eighth grade a friend of mine who also read books told me that “Anthony Adverse,” by Hervey Allen, had dirty parts in it; and I remember looking but don’t recall if I found any. It’s not that I was forbidden to read the novel—it was on the shelf at home, I think a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection—but I did probably look through it on the sly, making the act feel forbidden.

At about that same time I bet my sister a dollar I could read Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” all the way through. A Roman Catholic risked mortal sin to read it, because “Decline and Fall” was on the church’s Index of Forbidden Books. I was hoping the reason might be because of salacious material, descriptions of Roman orgies or bloody deeds in the arena. I didn’t come across any in the small number of pages I read, didn’t feel as though I’d committed any kind of sin and paid my sister the dollar.