A Banned Book- Frankenstein

In 1818 Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley published the first edition of her horror story Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.  The basic story line is now familiar to most readers as Hollywood has repeated the theme of a scientist attempting to conquer death by restoring inanimate tissues.  The story has been retold so often that it is hard to fathom that Mary's book spent decades as a banned book in certain nations.  The theme of piecing together parts from corpses just was a bit too much to handle.  Getting to be a banned book is an interesting process in itself.  Basically one has to offend someone powerful enough to be offended for the rest of humanity.  Accordingly books with explicit sexual content or foul language often raise the ire of bluenoses sufficiently to force them to act out of their protective natures to shield us from such content.

One of the great surprises of my brief writing career is that the Donner Party Cookbook, my first book released in 2004 quickly found itself banned at one place (an historic park dedicated to the Donner Party story) and kind of banned in a Federal trail center.  In the former case there appeared to have been concern over my frank (no pun intended) discussions of cannibalism.  They just flat refused to carry the book.   In the latter facility they sold my book but one had to whisper to the person working at the gift shop to get a copy out of the storage room.   (Sort of as people had to do with The Story of O or Candide.)  Like Mary Shelley, I had created a book with no cussing or sex but still wound up being banned.  I'm pretty proud of the company I keep.