A Short History of Burning Books

by Jack R. Johnson 03.2022

“With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his solid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the 10 furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.”

Book burning is as old as time, reaching at least as far back as 213 B.C., when Emperor Shih Huang Ti foolishly thought that if he could burn all the documents in his kingdom, history would begin with him. He also decided to bury alive those scholars who continued to teach any idea that somehow predated him. 

Eight centuries later, according to Time magazine, the Caliph Omar heated Alexandria’s baths “by burning some 200,000 objectionable books belonging to its famous libraries.” 

When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, “the waters of the Tigris were said to have run black with ink from all the destroyed books.” 

The Mongols of course were not the only ones. Christians happily got in on the act. In 1492, after the Spanish conquered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Western Europe, they emptied the city's treasured libraries and burnt their contents.

Catholics also torched the writings of Protestant reformer Martin Luther. Later, they forced Galileo to recant his scientific observation that the Earth was not, in fact, the center of the universe under penalty of torture and then death. Legend has it that after he recanted his views, Galileo muttered, “And yet it moves,” under his breath.

Infamous Nazi book burnings in 1933 targeted thousands of books deemed "un-German," including the works of Jewish authors like Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, as well as “corrupting foreign influences” like Ernest Hemingway.

Spurred by Senator Joseph McCarthy, in the 1950s many in our own government hunted for pro-communism books to burn, everything from Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” to John Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize winning “Grapes of Wrath.”

We here in Virginia are not immune, either.

One favorite story comes from our very own Richmond News Leader. In 1966 When the Hanover County School Board voted unanimously to ban "To Kill a Mockingbird" from their schools, author Harper Lee sent in an editorial letter. 

She accused the board members of being unable to read, and sent them a donation to be used for their re-enrollment in grade school. 

Here's the full letter, as it appeared in the paper:

“Editor, The News Leader:

Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that "To Kill a Mockingbird" spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.

I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.

Harper Lee”

In addition, The Richmond News Leader offered to send free copies of the book to the first 50 school children who requested a copy. These books were paid for out of the aforementioned Beadle Bumble Fund, a newspaper fund taking its name from the memorable character in Dickens' Oliver Twist.  Formed for the purpose of "redressing the stupidities of public officials." All 50 copies were given away.

Alas, that fund was apparently exhausted by the time of Virginia’s 2021 Governor’s race.  

During his campaign, Governor Youngkin ran an ad featuring a mother who wanted Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved” removed from her son’s school library. Terry McAuliffe, the then-governor, vetoed these efforts, and his 2021 Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin, based much of his closing message on the banning controversy. This statement of course, aligned with Youngkin’s decision to make the teaching of Critical Race Theory a topic worthy of banning, itself, despite the fact that it has never been taught at the high school level. Fortunately, Youngkin’s  tip line for parents to report school administrators or teachers who advance such ‘divisive’ topics has received near universal ridicule. 

Still, other Virginia counties are following the Governor’s lead. According to the Fredericksburg-based Free Lance-Star newspaper last week:

“The Spotsylvania County School Board has directed staff to begin removing books that contain “sexually explicit” material from library shelves.” 

The board voted 6–0 to order the removal. 

Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

They did not appear to be joking.

It’s not just Virginia. A Tennessee school board recently voted to ban Maus — Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel based on his father’s experience at Auschwitz — claiming it contained material that was inappropriate for students. 

In Kansas, after one parent objected to the language he found offensive in “The Hate U Give,” a novel about the aftermath of a police officer killing a Black teenager, the Goddard school district started pulling several well-known books from school libraries, including “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood; “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison; and “Fences,” a Pulitzer prize winning play by August Wilson.

The people who believe in these bans are sometimes racists or buffoons, as Harper Lee has noted, but the folks who oversee them, like Heinrich Goebbels or Joe McCarthy, are deeply cynical political manipulators. And if history is any guide, given sufficient power, they can become some of the most dangerous people on earth.

At least one famous book lover, Levar Burton has advocated a good solution—read the banned books. Last week, he appeared on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah,

“Recently, the number of books being targeted has gotten out of control, and the type of books that are being targeted now are very revealing,” Noah said. “They’re banning books about race, gender, sexuality, emotions, history. Guys, that’s all books.”

“There are plenty of books to choose from,” Burton added. “But you know what? No — read the books they don’t want you to. That’s where the good stuff is.” Burton had only one thing to say as he left the show: “Read banned books!”

Note: The quote at the beginning of this article is from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In the society of Fahrenheit 451, which is based on censorship of ideas and control of people’s thoughts with entertainment, “there is no greater danger to the status quo than a citizen who is curious to learn about their world.” Incidentally, since its publication 69 years ago, Fahrenheit 451 has been banned on numerous occasions.