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{{short description|Practice of destroying, books or other written material}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
[[File:The House of Leaves - Burning 4.jpg|thumb|A copy of ''[[House of Leaves]]'' being burned]]
[[File:1933-may-10-berlin-book-burning.JPG|thumb|Nazi youth brigades burning "un-German" works by Jewish and left-wing authors at the library of the ''[[Institut für Sexualwissenschaft]]'', 1933<ref name="holocaust" />]]
'''Book burning''' is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of [[censorship]] and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political opposition to the materials in question.<ref name="holocaust">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005852 |title=Book Burning |website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=November 8, 2022 |archive-date=5 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305062632/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005852}}</ref> Book burning can be an act of contempt for the book's contents or author, intended to draw wider public attention to this opposition, or conceal the information contained in the text from being made public, such as diaries or ledgers. Burning and other methods of destruction are together known as '''biblioclasm''' or '''libricide'''.

In some cases, the destroyed works are irreplaceable and their burning constitutes a severe loss to [[cultural heritage]]. Examples include the [[burning of books and burying of scholars]] under China's [[Qin dynasty]] (213–210 [[BCE]]), the destruction of the [[House of Wisdom]] during the [[Mongol Empire|Mongol]] [[Siege of Baghdad (1258)|siege of Baghdad]] (1258), the destruction of [[Aztec codices]] by [[Itzcoatl]] (1430s), the burning of [[Maya codices]] on the order of bishop [[Diego de Landa]] (1562),<ref name="outrageous">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/13/book-burning-history/ |title=Burning books: 6 outrageous, tragic and weird examples in history |last=Brockell |first=Gillian |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=November 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211113125409/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/13/book-burning-history/ |archive-date=November 13, 2021}}</ref> and the [[burning of Jaffna Public Library]] in [[Sri Lanka]] (1981).<ref name="smithsonian" />

In other cases, such as the [[Nazi book burnings]], copies of the destroyed books survive, but the instance of book burning becomes emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime which is seeking to censor or silence some aspect of prevailing culture.

In modern times, other forms of media, such as [[gramophone record|phonograph records]], [[Video|video tapes]], and [[Compact disc|CDs]] have also been burned, shredded, or crushed. [[Art destruction]] is related to book burning, both because it might have similar cultural, religious, or political connotations, and because in various historical cases, books and artworks were destroyed at the same time.

When the burning is widespread and systematic, destruction of books and media can become a significant component of [[cultural genocide]].

==Historical background==

The burning of books has a long history of being a tool utilized by authorities both [[civil authority|secular]] and [[Religion|religious]], in their efforts to suppress [[dissent]]ing or [[heresy|heretical]] views that are believed to pose a [[threat]] to the prevailing order.

Books infested with [[bookworm (insect)|bookworm]]s were sometimes burned in the Medieval era as a rudimentary form of [[pest control]], rather than targeted censorship.<ref name=Frenemies>Sajic, Andrijana. [https://www.metmuseum.org/articles/book-lovers "A Book's Best Frenemy"]. [[Met Museum]], 24 February 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2024.</ref>

=== Hebrew Bible (7th century BCE) ===
[[File:Jehoiakim Burns the Word of God (Bible Card).jpg|thumb|alt=A graphical depiction of Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah's scroll.|King [[Jehoiakim]] burns [[Jeremiah]]'s scroll.]]

According to the [[Hebrew Bible]], in the [[7th century BCE]], King [[Jehoiakim]] of [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]] burned part of a scroll that [[Baruch ben Neriah]] had written at prophet [[Jeremiah]]'s dictation (see [[Jeremiah 36]]).

=== Burning of books and burying of scholars in China (213–210 BCE) ===
[[File:Killing the Scholars, Burning the Books.jpg|thumb|[[Burning of books and burying of scholars|''Killing the Scholars and Burning the Books'']] in 210–213 BC (18th-century Chinese painting)]]

The burning of books as a means of government control goes back to Shang Yang, who had exhorted Duke Xiao of Qin in the fourth century BCE to burn books.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|p=86}} In 213 BCE [[Qin Shi Huang]], the first emperor of the [[Qin dynasty]], ordered the [[burning of books and burying of scholars]] and in 210 BCE he supposedly ordered the [[premature burial]] of 460 Confucian scholars in order to stay on his throne.<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite news |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-book-burning-printing-press-internet-archives-180964697/ |title=A Brief History of Book Burning, From the Printing Press to Internet Archives |last=Boissoneault |first=Lorraine |date=August 31, 2017 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=November 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170904210642/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-book-burning-printing-press-internet-archives-180964697/ |archive-date=September 4, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19922863 |title=Qin Shi Huang: The ruthless emperor who burned books |date=October 15, 2012 |website=BBC News |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220301030738/https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19922863 |archive-date=March 1, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2491 |title=The First Emperor of China Destroys Most Records of the Past Along with 460, or More, Scholars |website=History of Information |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524154937/https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2491 |archive-date=May 24, 2021}}</ref> Though the burning of books is well established, the [[Premature burial|live burial]] of scholars has been disputed by modern historians who doubt the details of the story, which first appeared more than a century later in the Han dynasty official [[Sima Qian]]'s ''[[Records of the Grand Historian]]''. The event caused the loss of many philosophical treatises of the [[Hundred Schools of Thought]], with only treatises on agriculture and medicine as well as a collection of divinations allowed to survive.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=85–87}} Treatises which advocated the official philosophy of the government ("[[Legalism (Chinese philosophy)|legalism]]") survived.{{Citation needed|reason=|date=February 2025}}

=== Christian book burnings (80–1759 CE) ===
In the [[New Testament]]'s [[Acts of the Apostles]], it is claimed that [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]] performed an [[exorcism]] in Ephesus. After men in Ephesus failed to perform the same feat many gave up their "curious arts" and burned the books because apparently, they did not work.

<blockquote>
And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.<ref>{{Bibleverse|Acts|19:18–20|KJV}}</ref>
</blockquote>

After the [[First Council of Nicea]] (325 CE), Roman emperor [[Constantine the Great]] issued an [[edict]] against [[nontrinitarian]] [[Arians]] which included a prescription for systematic book-burning: <blockquote> "In addition, if any writing composed by [[Arius]] should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offense, he shall be submitted for capital punishment....."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Athanasius |date=2010-01-23 |title=Fourth Century Christianity » Part of an edict against Arius and his followers |url=https://www.fourthcentury.com/urkunde-33/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819215807/http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/urkunde-33 |archive-date=2011-08-19 |access-date=2012-05-02 |website=Fourth Century Christianity |publisher=[[Wisconsin Lutheran College]]}}</ref></blockquote> 
Nevertheless, Constantine's edict on Arian works was not rigorously observed, as Arian writings or the theology based on them survived to be burned much later in Spain. According to the [[Chronicle of Fredegar]], [[Recared]], [[Visigothic Kingdom|King of the Visigoths]] (reigned 586–601) and first Catholic king of [[Hispania|Spain]], following his conversion to [[Catholicism]] in 587, ordered that all [[Arian]] books should be collected and burned; and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, along with the house in which they had been purposely collected.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=McMillan |first1=Duncan |url= |title=Guillaume d'Orange and the chanson de geste : essays presented to Duncan McMillan in celebration of his seventieth birthday by his friends and colleagues of the Société Rencesvals |last2=van Emden |first2=Wolfgang |last3=Bennett |first3=Philip E |last4=Kerr |first4=Alexander |last5=Société Rencesvals |date=1984 |publisher=University of Reading |isbn=978-0-7049-0927-4 |location=Reading |oclc=18225186}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gibbon |first=Edward |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32017316 |title=The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire |date=1994 |publisher=Allen Lane, Penguin Press |others=David Womersley |isbn=0-7139-9124-0 |location=London |oclc=32017316 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607185545/https://www.worldcat.org/title/history-of-the-decline-and-fall-of-the-roman-empire/oclc/32017316 |url-status=live}}</ref> 

According to [[Elaine Pagels]], "In AD 367, [[Athanasius]], the zealous bishop of [[Alexandria]]... issued an Easter letter in which he demanded that [[Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria|Egyptian monks]] destroy all such unacceptable writings, except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical'—a list that constitutes the present 'New Testament'".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pagels |first=Elaine H. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55641434 |title=Beyond belief : the secret Gospel of Thomas |date=2003 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=978-1-4000-7908-7 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=176–177 |language=en |oclc=55641434 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607185533/https://www.worldcat.org/title/beyond-belief-the-secret-gospel-of-thomas/oclc/55641434 |url-status=live}}</ref> (Pagels cites Athanasius's Paschal letter (letter 39) for 367 CE, which prescribes a canon, but her citation "cleanse the church from every defilement" (page 177) does not explicitly appear in the Festal letter.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxv.iii.iii.xxv.html |title= NPNF2-04. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters |publisher= Ccel.org |date= 13 July 2005 |access-date= 21 January 2012 |archive-date= 14 May 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190514223255/http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxv.iii.iii.xxv.html |url-status= live}}</ref>) 
Heretical texts do not turn up as [[palimpsest]]s, scraped clean and overwritten, as do many [[Classical literature|texts of Classical antiquity]]. According to author Rebecca Knuth, multitudes of early [[Christianity|Christian]] texts have been as thoroughly "destroyed" as if they had been publicly burnt.{{sfn|Knuth|2006|}}{{Citation needed|reason=Exact page needed, verification not possible|date=February 2025}}

In 1759 [[Pope Clement XIII]] banned all publications written by Swedish biologist [[Carl Linnaeus]] from the Vatican, and ordered that all copies of his work be burned.<ref name="MACUNI">{{cite web |last1=Downing |first1=Alison |last2=Atwell |first2=Brian |last3=Downing |first3=Kevin |title=''Sigesbeckia orientalis'' |url=http://bio.mq.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/plant-of-the-week-Sigesbeckia-orientalis.pdf |website=Biology-Macquarie University |publisher=Department of Biological Sciences |access-date=8 February 2021 |archive-date=19 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211119113531/http://bio.mq.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/plant-of-the-week-Sigesbeckia-orientalis.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="JTSOR">{{cite web |title=Johann Georg Siegesbeck |url=https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000368452 |website=Global Plants |publisher=[[JSTOR]] |access-date=8 February 2021 |archive-date=14 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214133319/https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000368452 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>In 1774, his successor, [[Pope Clement XIV]], reversed the ban and botanists were invited to present lectures on Linnaeus’ system at the
Vatican ([https://bio.mq.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/plant-of-the-week-Sigesbeckia-orientalis.pdf source]</ref>

=== Burning of Nestorian books (435 CE) ===
Activity by [[Cyril of Alexandria]] ({{circa}} 376–444) brought fire to almost all the writings of [[Nestorius]] (386–450) shortly after 435.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aina.org/books/mokk/mokk.htm#fn1 |title=The Monks of Kublai Khan |publisher=Aina.org |access-date=2017-12-15 |archive-date=29 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160229064627/http://www.aina.org/books/mokk/mokk.htm#fn1 |url-status=live}}</ref> 'The writings of Nestorius were originally very numerous',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Chapman |first1=John |date=1911 |title=Nestorius and Nestorianism |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm |url-status=live |access-date=25 January 2018 |website=[[Catholic Encyclopedia]] |publisher=Robert Appleton Company |location=New York |via=[[New Advent]] |archive-date=4 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110904014035/http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm}}</ref> however, they were not part of the Nestorian or Oriental theological curriculum until the mid-sixth century, unlike those of his teacher [[Theodore of Mopsuestia]], and those of [[Diodorus of Tarsus]], even then they were not key texts, so relatively few survive intact.{{sfn|Baum|Winkler|2003|}}{{Citation needed|reason=Exact page needed, verification not possible|date=February 2025}}

=== Muslim book burnings (650 CE - 15th century CE) ===
[[Uthman|Uthman ibn 'Affan]], the third [[Caliph]] of Islam after [[Muhammad]], who is credited with overseeing the collection of the verses of the [[Qur'an]], ordered after that in {{circa|650}} the destruction of any other remaining text containing verses of the Qur'an in order to ensure that his version become the only source for others to follow.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=46–47}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/061.sbt.html#006.061.510 |title=Volume 6, Book 61, Number 510 |publisher=Usc.edu |access-date=January 5, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823104808/http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/061.sbt.html#006.061.510 |archive-date=August 23, 2011}}</ref> During the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, many libraries, such as that of [[Caesarea Maritima]], were burned, and during the conquest of [[Khwarazm]] books were destroyed in order to weaken the identity and resistance of the local population.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=45–46}} Books of other religions were also explicitly burned. In 923, [[Manichaeism|Manichean]] books were burned at the public gate of Baghdad together with a portrait of Mani.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gulácsi |first1=Zsuzsanna |title=Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art: A Codicological Study of Iranian And Turkic Illuminated Book Fragments from 8th-11th Century East Central Asia |date=2005 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-13994-7 |page=30 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ikfnWtpbnyQC |access-date=22 February 2025 |language=en}}</ref> Similarly, [[Sikandar Shah Miri]], sultan of Kashmir, forced Hindu conversions and burned books in the fifteenth century.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=218–219}}

Often books were burned for belonging to another Muslim denominations. During the Abbasid invasion of Oman in 892, the army of [[Muhammad ibn Nur]] burnt books of the [[Ibadism|Ibadis]], which probably also contributed to the paucity of sources on early south-east Arabia's history.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Abed |first1=Ibrahim |last2=Hellyer |first2=Peter |title=United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective |date=2001 |publisher=Trident Press Ltd |isbn=978-1-900724-47-0 |page=86 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QcMz3zV0qAMC |access-date=22 February 2025 |language=en}}</ref>The Sunni Ghaznavid ruler [[Mahmud of Ghazni|Mahmud]] burned after his sack of [[Rayy]] a great part of the city's library books as he considered the books, many of them Shiite, heretical.<ref>{{Encyclopædia Iranica| last = Nagel | first = Tilman | title = Buyids | url = https://iranicaonline.org/articles/buyids | year = 1990 | volume=4 | fascicle=6 | pages = 578–586 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tetley |first1=G. E. |title=The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History |date=27 October 2008 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-08438-8 |pages=70–71 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SVV9AgAAQBAJ |access-date=22 February 2025 |language=en}}</ref> A similar thing happened during the [[Seljuks]] takeover of [[Buyid]] Baghdad in 1059 when the famous ''[[House of Wisdom|dar al-'ilm]]'' was burned.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|p=58}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Arregui |first1=Aníbal |last2=Mackenthun |first2=Gesa |last3=Wodianka |first3=Stephanie |title=DEcolonial Heritage: Natures, Cultures, and the Asymmetries of Memory |date=2018 |publisher=Waxmann Verlag |isbn=978-3-8309-8790-1 |page=65 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3v9TDwAAQBAJ |access-date=5 March 2025 |language=en}}</ref>

Books were also burned in Muslim Spain between the tenth and twelfth century under the Ummayyad, Amirid, Abbadid, Almoravid and Almohad dynasties, often of writers that were deemed heretical or a challenge to the rulers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Safran |first1=Janina M. |title=The politics of book burning in al-Andalus |journal=Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies |date=3 July 2014 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=148–168 |doi=10.1080/17546559.2014.925134}}</ref> During the rule of caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub the possession of books on logic or philosophy (''hikma'') was forbidden and many books, including those by the famous [[Ibn Rushd]], burned.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conrad |first1=Lawrence I. |title=The World of Ibn Ṭufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān |date=1996 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-10135-7 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kXvhz04I-0YC |access-date=22 February 2025 |language=en}}</ref>

=== French burning of Jewish manuscripts (1244 CE) ===

In 1244, as an outcome of the [[Disputation of Paris]], twenty-four carriage loads of [[Talmud]]s and other Jewish religious manuscripts were set on fire by [[Kingdom of France|French]] law officers in the streets of Paris.<ref>{{cite book|title= The history of the Talmud, from the time of its formation, about 200 B. C.|first= Michael Levi|last= Rodkinson|pages= 66–75|year= 1918|publisher= Talmud Society}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title= Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages|url= https://archive.org/details/judaismontrialje00macc|url-access= registration|first= Hyam |last= Maccoby|year= 1982|publisher= Associated University Presses|isbn= 9780838630532}}</ref>

=== Spanish burning of Aztec and Mayan manuscripts (1560s CE) ===

During the [[Spanish colonization of the Americas]], numerous books written by [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous peoples]] were burned by the Spaniards. Several books{{quantify|date=April 2018}} written by the [[Aztecs]] were burnt by Spanish [[conquistador]]s and priests during the [[Spanish conquest of Yucatán]]. Despite opposition from Catholic friar [[Bartolomé de las Casas]], numerous books found by the Spanish in [[Yucatán Peninsula|Yucatán]] were burnt on the order of Bishop [[Diego de Landa]] in 1562.<ref name="outrageous" /><ref>{{cite web |url=https://popular-archaeology.com/article/burning-the-maya-books-the-1562-tragedy-at-mani/ |title=Burning the Maya Books: The 1562 Tragedy at Mani |last=Fery |first=Georges |date=October 23, 2020 |website=Popular Archaeology |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-date=17 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221017011911/https://popular-archaeology.com/article/burning-the-maya-books-the-1562-tragedy-at-mani/ |url-status=live }}</ref> De Landa wrote on the incident that "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the [[Maya peoples|Maya]]) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction".<ref name="outrageous" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Murray |first=Stuart |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/277203534 |title=The library : an illustrated history |date=2009 |publisher=[[Skyhorse Publishing]] |others=Nicholas A. Basbanes, American Library Association |isbn=978-1-60239-706-4 |location=New York, New York |page=158 |language=en |oclc=277203534 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200407140537/https://www.worldcat.org/title/library-an-illustrated-history/oclc/277203534 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Book burnings in Tudor and Stuart England (16th century CE)===

The founding of the [[Church of England]] after [[Henry VIII|King Henry VIII]] broke away from the Catholic Church led to the targeting of [[Catholic Church in England and Wales|English Catholics]] by [[Protestantism|Protestants]]. The dissolution of the monasteries led to the destruction of many libraries and Edward VI, Henry's son, encouraged his subjects to destroy all books that were associated with "old learning".{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=132–135}} Throughout the [[Tudor period|Tudor]] and [[Stuart period]]s, Protestant citizens loyal to [[the Crown]] attacked Catholic religious sites across England, frequently burning any religious texts they found. These acts were encouraged by the Crown, who pressured the general public to take part in such "spectacles". According to American historian David Cressy, over "the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries book burning developed from a rare to an occasional occurrence, relocated from an outdoor to an indoor procedure, and changed from a bureaucratic to a quasi-theatrical performance".<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/20477359|jstor=20477359|title=Book Burning in Tudor and Stuart England|year=2005|last1=Cressy|first1=David|journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal|volume=36|issue=2|pages=359–374|s2cid=190209868 }}</ref>

With the [[Bishops' Ban of 1599]] the [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] and the [[Bishop of London]] ordered an end to the production of verse satire and the confiscation and the burning of specific extant works, including works by [[John Marston (playwright)|John Marston]] and [[Thomas Middleton]]. Nine books were specifically singled out for destruction. Scholars disagree about what properties these nine books have in common to cause official offence.

=== Burning of Voltaire's books (18th century CE) ===

During the 18th century, the works of French philosopher and writer [[Voltaire]] were repeatedly burned by government officials in the kingdoms of [[Kingdom of France|France]] and [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]]. In 1734, the publication of his ''[[Letters on the English|Lettres philosophiques]]'' in the city of [[Rouen]] led to a public outcry, as it was seen as an attack against the ''[[ancien régime]]'' of France. In response, the French authorities ordered copies of book to be publicly confiscated and burnt, and Voltaire was forced to flee [[Paris]]. In 1751, King of Prussia [[Frederick the Great]] ordered a pamphlet written by Voltaire titled ''[[Doctor Akakia]]'' to be publicly burnt as it insulted [[Pierre Louis Maupertuis]], the president of the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences]] in [[Berlin]], of whom Frederick was a significant patron.<ref> {{Cite book |last=Pearson |first=Roger |url=https://archive.org/details/voltairealmighty00pear |title=Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-58234-630-4 |author-link=Roger Pearson (literary scholar)}} </ref>

=== Burning of abolitionist books in the American South (1859–60 CE) ===

Following [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry]] in 1859, slaveholders and their supporters spread panic about [[abolitionism]], believing that anti-slavery conspiracies would lead to widespread slave revolts. Pro-slavery southerners burned books in [[Mississippi]], [[South Carolina]], and [[Texas]], including textbooks from public schools. Books that were critical of slavery, or insufficiently supportive of it, were seen as "anti-Southern" by the book-burners.<ref name="Reynolds2007">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nH-F0iGVO-AC |title=Texas Terror: The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1860 and the Secession of the Lower South |first=Donald E. |last=Reynolds |year=2007 |isbn=9780807135341 |oclc=646807069 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |location=Baton Rouge |pages=20–21 |access-date=21 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164815/https://books.google.com/books?id=nH-F0iGVO-AC |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Comstock book burnings in the United States (1873–1950 CE)===
[[File:Plaque at Bebelplaz commemorating Nazi book burning, 10 May 1933.jpg|thumb|Plaque at Bebelplaz commemorating Nazi book burning, 10 May 1933]]
[[Anthony Comstock]]'s [[New York Society for the Suppression of Vice]], founded in 1873, inscribed book burning on its seal, as a worthy goal to be achieved.<ref name="outrageous" /> Comstock's total accomplishment in a long and influential career is estimated to have been the destruction of some 15 tons of books, 284,000 pounds of plates for printing such "objectionable" books, and nearly 4,000,000 pictures. All of this material was defined as "[[Lascivious|lewd]]" by Comstock's very broad definition of the term – which he and his associates successfully lobbied the [[United States Congress]] to incorporate in the [[Comstock Law]].<ref>{{cite court |litigants=Roth v. United States |vol=354 |reporter=U.S. |opinion=476 |court=2d Cir. |date=1957 |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/354/476.html |access-date=2022-06-06}}</ref>

=== Nazi regime (1933 CE) ===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14597, Berlin, Opernplatz, Bücherverbrennung.jpg|thumb|Thousands of books smoulder in a huge bonfire as Germans give the Nazi salute during the wave of [[Nazi book burnings|book-burnings that spread throughout Nazi Germany]].]]
{{Main|Nazi book burnings}}

The [[Government of Nazi Germany|Nazi government]] decreed broad grounds for burning material "which acts subversively on [[Nazi Germany's]] future or strikes at the root of German thought, the German home and the driving forces of German people".<ref name="holocaust" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=1998 |title=The Burning of the Books |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-burning-of-the-books |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220606224243/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-burning-of-the-books |archive-date=2022-06-06 |access-date=2015-12-19 |website=[[Jewish Virtual Library]] |publisher=American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goebbels-burnings/ |title=Book Burnings in Germany, 1933 |website=PBS |access-date=November 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190419090858/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goebbels-burnings/ |archive-date=April 19, 2019}}</ref>{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=179–182}}

=== Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952 CE)===
{{Further|Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers#Media censorship}}

During the Allied [[occupation of Japan]], [[Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers|GHQ]] officials banned any kind of criticism of the Allies or "reactionary" political ideas and many books were confiscated and burned. Over 7,000 books were destroyed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nishio |first=Kanji |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/427545621 |title=GHQ funsho tosho kaifū |date=2008 |publisher=Tokuma Shoten |isbn=978-4-19-862516-0 |location=Tokyo |language=ja |oclc=427545621 |author-link=Kanji Nishio}}</ref>

==Notable book burnings and destruction of libraries==
{{Main|List of book-burning incidents|List of destroyed libraries}}

==Burnings by authors==
In 1588, the exiled English Catholic [[William Allen (cardinal)|William Cardinal Allen]] wrote "''[[An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England]]''", a work sharply attacking Queen [[Elizabeth I]]. It was to be published in Spanish-occupied England in the event of the [[Spanish Armada]] succeeding in its invasion. Upon the defeat of the Armada, Allen carefully consigned his publication to the fire, and it is only known of through one of Elizabeth's spies, who had stolen a copy.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pollen |first=John Hungerford |date=1907 |title=The Spanish Armada |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01727c.htm |url-status=live |access-date=2022-06-06 |website=[[Catholic Encyclopedia]] |publisher=Robert Appleton Company |location=New York |via=[[New Advent]] |archive-date=18 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220418143035/https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01727c.htm}}</ref>

[[Carlo Goldoni]] is known to have burned his first play, a [[tragedy]] called ''[[Amalasunta]]'' in the 1730s, when encountering unfavorable criticism.

The [[Hassid]]ic Rabbi [[Nachman of Breslov]] is reported to have written a book which he himself burned in 1808. To this day, his followers mourn "The Burned Book" and seek in their Rabbi's surviving writings for clues as to what the lost volume contained and why it was destroyed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://acco-tour.50webs.com/SIDEMENU/aharonim/nahman.htm |title=עכותור – מדריכי טיולים לעיר עכו ולכל הארץ &#124; מדריך טיולים &#124; מסלולי טיול לקבוצות עברית + צרפתית |publisher=Acco-tour.50webs.com |access-date=21 January 2012 |archive-date=7 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707064902/http://acco-tour.50webs.com/SIDEMENU/aharonim/nahman.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Nikolai Gogol]] burned the second half of his 1842 magnum opus ''[[Dead Souls]]'', having come under the influence of a priest who persuaded him that his work was sinful; Gogol later described this as a mistake.

As noted in Claire Tomalin's intensively researched "The Invisible Woman", [[Charles Dickens]] is known to have made a big bonfire of his letters and private papers, as well as asking friends and acquaintances to either return letters which he wrote to them or themselves destroy the letters – and most complied with his request in the 1850s and the 1860s. Dickens' purpose was to destroy evidence of his affair with the actress Nelly Ternan. To judge from surviving Dickens letters, the destroyed material – even if not intended for publication – might have had considerable literary merit.

[[Martin Gardner]], a well-known expert on the work of [[Lewis Carroll]], believes that Carroll had written an earlier version in the 1860s of ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' which he later destroyed after writing a more elaborate version which he presented to the child Alice who inspired the book.<ref name=":2">{{cite book|last=Gardner|first=Martin|title=The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition|publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]|year=2000|isbn=978-0-393-04847-6|location=New York|ref=Gardner}}</ref>

In the 1870s [[Tchaikovsky]] destroyed the full manuscript of his first opera, ''[[Voyevoda (opera)|The Voyevoda]]''. Decades later, during the Soviet period, ''The Voyevoda'' was posthumously reconstructed from surviving orchestral and vocal parts and the composer's sketches.

===20th century===
[[Alberto Santos-Dumont]], after being considered a spy by the French government in 1914 and then having this deception excused by the police, he destroyed all his aeronautical documents.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Hoffman |first=Paul |url=https://archive.org/details/wingsofmadnessal0000hoff |title=Wings of Madness |publisher=[[Hachette Books|Hyperion Books]] |year=2003 |isbn=0-7868-8571-8 |page=277 |author-link=Paul Hoffman (science writer) |url-access=registration}}</ref> The following year, according to the afterword to the historical novel "De gevleugelde," [[Arthur Japin]] says that when Dumont returned to Brazil, he "burned all his diaries, letters and drawings."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Japin |first=Arthur |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1063970649 |title=O homem com asas |date=2016 |publisher=Planeta do Brasil |isbn=978-85-422-0754-5 |location=São Paulo |page=285 |language=pt-br |translator-last=do Amaral |translator-first=Cristiano Zwiesele |oclc=1063970649 |author-link=Arthur Japin |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607185556/https://www.worldcat.org/title/homem-com-asas/oclc/1063970649 |url-status=live}}</ref>

After [[Hector Hugh Munro]] (better known by the [[pen name]] ''Saki'') was killed in [[World War I]] in November 1916, his sister Ethel destroyed most of his papers.

There is substantial evidence that Finnish composer [[Jean Sibelius]] worked on an Eighth Symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to [[Serge Koussevitzky]] in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under [[Basil Cameron]] was even advertised to the public. However, no such symphony was ever performed, and the only concrete evidence of the symphony's existence on paper is a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played in 2011.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kilpeläinen |first=Kari |date=1995-12-01 |title=Sibelius Eight. What happened to it? |url=http://www.fmq.fi/1995/12/sibelius-eight-what-happened-to-it/ |url-status=live |journal=Finnish Music Quarterly |issue=4 |issn=0782-1069 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305041724/http://www.fmq.fi/1995/12/sibelius-eight-what-happened-to-it/ |archive-date=2016-03-05 |access-date=2015-11-29}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Sirén |first=Vesa |author-link=:fi:Vesa Sirén |date=2011-10-30 |title=Is this the sound of Sibelius's lost Eighth Symphony? |work=[[Helsingin Sanomat#Helsingin Sanomat International Edition|Helsingin Sanomat International Edition]] |url=http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Is+this+the+sound+of+Sibeliuss+lost+Eighth+Symphony/1135269867060 |url-status=dead |access-date=2014-01-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140122151341/http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Is+this+the+sound+of+Sibeliuss+lost+Eighth+Symphony/1135269867060 |archive-date=2014-01-22 |issn=1239-257X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Sirén |first=Vesa |author-link=:fi:Vesa Sirén |date=2011-10-30 |title=Soiko HS.fi:n videolla Sibeliuksen kadonnut sinfonia? |language=fi |work=[[Helsingin Sanomat]] |url=http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/a1305548269034 |url-status=dead |access-date=2015-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150217084022/http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/a1305548269034 |archive-date=2015-02-17 |issn=1239-257X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Stearns |first=David Patrick |date=2012-01-03 |title=One last Sibelius symphony after all? |work=[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]] |url=http://articles.philly.com/2012-01-03/entertainment/30583650_1_finnish-composer-jean-sibelius-symphony-helsinki-philharmonic |url-status=dead |access-date=2015-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070221/http://articles.philly.com/2012-01-03/entertainment/30583650_1_finnish-composer-jean-sibelius-symphony-helsinki-philharmonic |archive-date=2016-03-04 |issn=2165-1728}}</ref> Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of the score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames.<ref>{{cite web |title=The war and the destruction of the eighth symphony 1939–1945 |work=Jean Sibelius |publisher=Finnish Club of Helsinki |url=http://www.sibelius.fi/english/elamankaari/sib_kahdeksannen_tuhoaminen.htm |access-date=2 April 2020 |archive-date=8 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190208192801/http://www.sibelius.fi/english/elamankaari/sib_kahdeksannen_tuhoaminen.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

Aino, Sibelius' wife, recalled that "In the 1940s there was a great [[auto da fé]] at [[Ainola]] [where the Sibelius couple lived]. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the ''[[Karelia Suite]]'' were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood." It is assumed that a draft of Sibelius' Eighth Symphony - which he worked on in the early 1930s but with which he was not satisfied - was among the papers destroyed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Alex |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/236120279 |title=The rest is noise : listening to the twentieth century |date=2008 |publisher=[[Harper Perennial]] |isbn=978-1-84115-476-3 |edition=3rd |location=London |oclc=236120279 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607185533/https://www.worldcat.org/title/rest-is-noise-listening-to-the-twentieth-century/oclc/236120279 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Joe Shuster]], who together with [[Jerry Siegel]] created the fictional [[superhero]] [[Superman]], in 1938 burned the first Superman story when under the impression that it would not find a publisher.

[[Axel Jensen]] made his debut as a novelist in [[Oslo]] in 1955 with the novel ''Dyretemmerens kors'', but he later burned the remaining unsold copies of the book.

In August 1963, when [[C.S. Lewis]] resigned from [[Magdalene College, Cambridge]] and his rooms there were being cleaned out, Lewis gave instructions to [[Douglas Gresham]] to destroy all his unfinished or incomplete fragments of manuscript - which scholars researching Lewis' work regard as a grievous loss.<ref name="Lindskoog111-12">{{cite book |last=Lindskoog |first=Kathryn Ann |url=https://archive.org/details/sleuthingcslewis0000lind |title=Sleuthing C.S. Lewis: more Light in the shadowlands |publisher=[[Mercer University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=9780865547308 |pages=111–12 |oclc=45963041 |author-link=Kathryn Lindskoog |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In 1976 detractors of Venezuelan [[Liberalism|liberal]] writer [[Carlos Rangel]] publicly burned copies of his book ''[[From the Noble Savage to the Noble Revolutionary]]'' in the year of its publication at the [[Central University of Venezuela]].<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Pérez |first=Omar Alberto |title=Rangel, Carlos {{!}} Fundación Empresas Polar |url=https://bibliofep.fundacionempresaspolar.org/dhv/entradas/r/rangel-carlos/ |access-date=2021-07-12 |website=Biblioteca de la Fundación Polar |language=es-ve |archive-date=3 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210703124647/https://bibliofep.fundacionempresaspolar.org/dhv/entradas/r/rangel-carlos/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Villasmil-Prieto |first=Gustavo J |date=2019-10-19 |title=El profesor judío, por Gustavo J. Villasmil Prieto |url=https://talcualdigital.com/el-profesor-judio-por-gustavo-j-villasmil-prieto/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220503065625/https://talcualdigital.com/el-profesor-judio-por-gustavo-j-villasmil-prieto/ |archive-date=2022-05-03 |access-date=2021-07-12 |website=[[Tal Cual]] |language=es-ve}}</ref>

==Books saved from burning==
[[File:NewYorkSocietyForTheSuppressionOfVice.jpg|thumb|right|Symbol of the "[[New York Society for the Suppression of Vice]]", advocating book-burning]]

In Catholic [[hagiography]], Saint [[Vincent of Saragossa]] is mentioned as having been offered his life on condition that he consign Scripture to the fire; he refused and was martyred. He is often depicted holding the book which he protected with his life.

Another book-saving Catholic saint is the 10th-century Saint [[Wiborada]]. She is credited with having predicted in 925 an [[Hungarian invasions of Europe|invasion by the then-pagan Hungarians]] of her region in Switzerland. Her warning allowed the priests and religious of St. Gall and St. Magnus to hide their books and wine and escape into caves in nearby hills.<ref name="library">{{cite mailing list | last =O'Donnell | first =Jim | publisher =[[Georgetown University]] | title =Patron saints | mailing-list =liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu | date =2003-11-20 | url =http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0311/msg00071.html | access-date =2007-05-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211074306/https://library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0311/msg00071.html |archive-date=2012-02-11}}</ref> Wiborada herself refused to escape and was killed by the marauders, being later canonized. In art, she is commonly represented holding a book to signify the library she saved, and is considered a patron saint of [[library|libraries]] and librarians.

[[File:Vitahomosexualis.JPG|thumb|''Vita homosexualis'', a 1902 collection of August Fleischmann's popular pamphlets on [[third gender]] and against [[§175]] - a [[Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee]] library copy, confiscated on 6 May 1933, annotated on the endpaper: '''''By [[Reichspräsident]]'s [[Reichstag Fire Decree|decree of 28.02.1933]] destined for destruction!''''' and hidden from the publique (label "Secr.") as [[Nazi plunder]] by the [[Prussian State Library]].]]

During a tour of Thuringia in 1525, [[Martin Luther]] became enraged at the widespread burning of libraries along with other buildings during the [[German Peasants' War]], writing ''[[Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants]]'' in response.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Luther |first1=Martin |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13839632 |title=Luther's Works. |last2=Pelikan |first2=Jaroslav |last3=Oswald |first3=Hilton C |last4=Lehmann |first4=Helmut T |last5=Brown |first5=Christopher Boyd |last6=Mayes |first6=Benjamin T. G |date=1955 |publisher=[[Concordia Publishing House]] |isbn=978-0-570-06410-7 |volume=46 |pages=50–51 |language=English |oclc=13839632 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607002012/https://www.worldcat.org/title/luthers-works/oclc/13839632 |url-status=live}}</ref>

During the [[Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire]] the [[Imperial Court Library]] (now [[Austrian National Library]]) was in extreme danger, when the bombardment of Vienna caused the burning of the [[Hofburg]], in which the Imperial Library was located. The fire was halted in a timely manner - saving countless irreplaceable books, diligently collected by many generations of Habsburg emperors and the scholars in their employ.

At the beginning of the [[Battle of Monte Cassino]] in [[World War II]], two German officers – Viennese-born Lt. Col. Julius Schlegel (a Roman Catholic) and Captain Maximilian Becker (a Protestant) – had the foresight to transfer the [[Monte Cassino]] archives to the Vatican. Otherwise the archives – containing a vast number of documents relating to the 1500-years' history of the Abbey as well as some 1,400 irreplaceable manuscript [[Codex|codices]], chiefly [[patristic]] and historical – would have been destroyed in the Allied air bombing which almost completely destroyed the Abbey shortly afterwards. Also saved by the two officers' prompt action were the collections of the [[Keats-Shelley Memorial House]] in Rome, which had been sent to the Abbey for safety in December 1942.

The [[Sarajevo Haggadah]] – one of the oldest and most valuable Jewish [[illustrated manuscript]]s, with immense historical and cultural value – was hidden from the [[Nazism|Nazis]] and their [[Ustaše]] collaborators by [[Derviš Korkut]], chief librarian of the National Museum in [[Sarajevo]].{{sfn|Ovenden|2020|p=163}} At risk to his own life, Korkut smuggled the Haggadah out of Sarajevo and gave it for safekeeping to a Muslim cleric in [[Zenica]], where it was hidden until the end of the war under the floorboards of either a mosque or a Muslim home. The Haggadah again survived destruction during the wars which followed the [[breakup of Yugoslavia]].<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://geraldinebrooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Korkut_near-final-pages.pdf|title=The Book of Exodus: A Double Rescue in Wartime Sarajevo|date=3 December 2007|last=Brooks|first=Geraldine|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=31 March 2012|archive-date=28 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828043237/http://geraldinebrooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Korkut_near-final-pages.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> 
 
In 1940s France, a group of anti-fascist exiles created a Library of Burned Books which housed all the books that [[Adolf Hitler]] had destroyed. This library contained copies of titles that were burned by the Nazis in their campaign to cleanse German culture of Jewish and foreign influences such as pacifist and decadent literature. The Nazis themselves planned to make a "museum" of Judaism once the ''[[Final Solution]]'' was complete to house certain books that they had saved.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lyons|first=Martyn|title=Books:A Living History|year=2011|publisher=J.Paul Getty Museum|location=Los Angeles|isbn=9781606060834|pages=200–201}}</ref>

== Posthumous destruction of works ==

When [[Virgil]] died, he left instructions that [[Aeneid#Virgil's death, and editing|his manuscript of the ''Aeneid'' was to be burnt]], as it was a draft version with uncorrected faults and not a final version for release. However, this instruction was ignored. It is mainly to the ''Aeneid'', published in this "imperfect" form, that Virgil owes his lasting fame – and it is considered one of the great masterpieces of classical literature as a whole.<ref name="destroyed" /><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/is-the-aeneid-a-celebration-of-empire-or-a-critique |title=Is The Aeneid a Celebration of Empire - or a Critique? |last=Mendelsohn |first=Daniel |date=October 8, 2018 |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008122550/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/is-the-aeneid-a-celebration-of-empire-or-a-critique |archive-date=October 8, 2018}}</ref>

Before his death, [[Franz Kafka]] wrote to his friend and [[literary executor]] [[Max Brod]]: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread."{{sfn|Ovenden|2020|pp=101–103}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26kafka-t.html |title=Kafka's Last Trial |last=Batuman |first=Elif |date=September 22, 2010 |website=The New York Times |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118161517/https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26kafka-t.html |archive-date=January 18, 2022}}</ref> Brod overrode Kafka's wishes, believing that Kafka had given these directions to him, specifically, because Kafka knew he would not honour them – Brod had told him as much. Had Brod carried out Kafka's instructions, virtually the whole of Kafka's work – except for a few short stories published in his lifetime – would have been lost forever. Most critics, at the time and up to the present, justify Brod's decision.<ref name="destroyed">{{cite web |url=https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/kafka-wanted-all-his-work-destroyed-after-his-death-or-did-he-20180906-h14zsd#:~:text=Before%20he%20died%2C%20Kafka%20had,including%20his%20letters%20and%20diaries. |title=Kafka wanted all his work destroyed after his death. Or did he? |last=Kirsch |first=Adam |date=September 6, 2018 |website=Financial Review |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211022091129/https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/kafka-wanted-all-his-work-destroyed-after-his-death-or-did-he-20180906-h14zsd |archive-date=October 22, 2021}}</ref> In his foreword to Kafka's ''The Castle'' Brod noted that when entering Kafka's apartment after his death, he found several big empty folders and traces of burnt paper - the manuscripts which were in these folders having evidently been destroyed by Kafka himself before his death. Brod expressed pain at the irreversible loss of this material and happiness at having saved so much of Kafka's work from its creator's ruthlessness.

A similar case concerns the noted American poet [[Emily Dickinson]], who died in 1886 and left to her sister Lavinia the instruction of burning all her papers. Lavinia Dickinson did burn almost all of her sister's correspondences, but interpreted the will as not including the forty notebooks and loose sheets, all filled with almost 1800 poems; these Lavinia saved and began to publish the poems that year. Had Lavinia Dickinson been more strict in carrying out her sister's will, all but a small handful of Emily Dickinson's poetic work would have been lost.<ref>{{cite book|last=Habegger|first=Alfred|title=My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson|url=https://archive.org/details/mywarsarelaidawa00habe|url-access=registration|year=2001|page=[https://archive.org/details/mywarsarelaidawa00habe/page/n651 604]|publisher=Random House |isbn=9780679449867}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Farr|editor-first=Judith|title=Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Critical Essays|year=1996|publisher=Prentice Hall International Paperback Editions|isbn=978-0-13-033524-1|page=3}}</ref>

In early 1964, several months after the death of [[C.S. Lewis]], Lewis' literary executor [[Walter Hooper]], rescued a 64-page manuscript from a bonfire of the author's writings – the burning carried out according to Lewis' will.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/rescued-from-the-bonfire-the-lost-work-of-c-s-lewis-2231809.html |title=Rescued from the bonfire, the lost work of C S Lewis |last=sharp |first=Rob |date=March 4, 2011 |website=Independent |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110305170411/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/rescued-from-the-bonfire-the-lost-work-of-c-s-lewis-2231809.html |archive-date=March 5, 2011}}</ref> In 1977, Hooper published it under the name ''[[The Dark Tower (Lewis novel)|The Dark Tower]]''. It was apparently intended as part of Lewis' ''[[Space Trilogy]]''. Though incomplete and evidently an early draft which Lewis abandoned, its publication aroused great interest and a continued discussion among Lewis fans and scholars researching his work.

==Modern biblioclasm==
Although the act of destroying books is condemned by the majority of the world's societies, book burning still occurs on a small or large scale.

===20th century===
In [[Azerbaijan]], when a modified Latin alphabet was adopted, books which were published in the Arabic script were burned, especially those published in the late 1920s and 1930s.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jafarzade |first=Aziza |date=2006 |title=14.1 - Memoirs of 1937 - Burning Our Books - The Arabic Script Goes Up in Flames |url=https://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai141_folder/141_articles/141_aziza_jafarzade.html |url-status=live |access-date=2022-06-06 |website=Azerbaijan International |location=United States |at=vol. 14:1 pp. 24-25 |archive-date=2 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102144750/http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai141_folder/141_articles/141_aziza_jafarzade.html}}</ref> The texts were not limited to the Quran; medical and historical manuscripts were also destroyed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rustamov |first=Asaf |date=1999 |title=7.3 The Day They Burnt Our Books |url=http://azeri.org/Azeri/az_english/73_folder/73_articles/73_justforkids.html |url-status=live |access-date=2022-06-06 |website=Azerbaijan International |location=United States |at=vol 7:3 pp. 74-75 |archive-date=28 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928201715/http://azeri.org/Azeri/az_english/73_folder/73_articles/73_justforkids.html}}</ref>
[[File:Yad Vashem Books burned by Nazis by David Shankbone.jpg|thumb|Copies of books which were burned by the Nazis, on display at [[Yad Vashem]]]]
Book burnings were regularly organised in [[Nazi Germany]] in the 1930s by [[Sturmabteilung|stormtroopers]] so that "degenerate" works could be destroyed, especially works written by Jewish authors such as [[Thomas Mann]], [[Marcel Proust]], and [[Karl Marx]]. One of the most infamous book burnings in the 20th century occurred in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 10, 1933.<ref name="holocaust" /> Organized by [[Joseph Goebbels]], books were burned in a celebratory fashion, complete with bands, marchers, and songs. Seeking to "cleanse" German culture of the "un-German" spirit, Goebbels compelled students (who were egged on by their professors) to perform the book burning. To some this could be easily dismissed as the childish actions of the youth, but to many in Europe and America, it was a horrific display of power and disrespect.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Baker |first=Kenneth |date=2016-09-09 |title=Burning Books |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/burning-books |access-date=2022-06-07 |magazine=[[History Today]] |volume=66 |issue=9 |page=44 |archive-date=14 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190914143329/https://www.historytoday.com/archive/burning-books |url-status=live}}</ref> During the [[Denazification#Censorship|denazification]] which followed the war, literature which had been confiscated by the Allies was reduced to pulp rather than burned.

In 1937, during [[Vargas Era#Third Brazilian Republic (Estado Novo)|Getúlio Vargas' dictatorship]] in [[Brazil]], several books by authors such as [[Jorge Amado]] and [[José Lins do Rego]] were burned in an anti-communist act.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Ramos |first=Jorge |date=2012-08-12 |title=Ditadura Vargas incinerou em praça pública 1.640 livros de Jorge Amado |url=https://www.correio24horas.com.br/noticia/nid/ditadura-vargas-incinerou-em-praca-publica-1640-livros-de-jorge-amado/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191203012217/https://www.correio24horas.com.br/noticia/nid/ditadura-vargas-incinerou-em-praca-publica-1640-livros-de-jorge-amado/ |archive-date=2019-12-03 |access-date=2021-05-24 |website=Jornal Correio |language=pt-br}}</ref>

In the [[People's Republic of China]] from the 1940s to present day, library officials publicize the burning of "illegal publications, religious publications".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-china-library-officials-burn-books-that-diverge-from-communist-party-ideology/2019/12/09/5563ee46-1a43-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html|title=China's library officials are burning books that diverge from Communist Party ideology|last=Shih|first=Gerry|date=9 December 2019|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=10 December 2019|archive-date=9 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191209220928/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-china-library-officials-burn-books-that-diverge-from-communist-party-ideology/2019/12/09/5563ee46-1a43-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1942, local Catholic priests forced Irish storyteller Timothy Buckley to burn a book ''[[The Tailor and Ansty]]'' by [[Eric Cross (writer)|Eric Cross]] about Buckley and his wife, because of its sexual frankness.<ref name="times2006">{{cite news|last=Keating|first=Sara|title=Bringing tales of the tailor back home|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2006/0127/1137626807241.html|access-date=19 December 2010|newspaper=[[The Irish Times]]|date=1 January 2006|archive-date=22 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022185623/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2006/0127/1137626807241.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the 1950s, over six tons of books by [[William Reich|Wilhelm Reich]] were burned in the U.S. in compliance with judicial orders.<ref name="IDP">{{Cite news |last=Sharaf |date=1956-07-13 |title=BOOK ORDER APPEALED; Liberties Unit Asks U.S. Not to Destroy Reich's Writings |pages=419, 460–461 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/07/13/archives/book-order-appealed-liberties-unit-asks-us-not-to-destroy-reichs.html |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180722185249/https://www.nytimes.com/1956/07/13/archives/book-order-appealed-liberties-unit-asks-us-not-to-destroy-reichs.html |archive-date=2018-07-22}}</ref> In 1954, the works of [[Mordecai Kaplan]] were burned by [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jewish]] [[rabbi]]s in America, after Kaplan was [[Herem (censure)|excommunicated]].<ref name="silver">{{Cite web |last=Silver |first=Zachary |date=2005-06-03 |title=A Look Back at a Different Book Burning |url=https://forward.com/culture/3610/a-look-back-at-a-different-book-burning/ |url-status=live |access-date=2022-06-07 |website=The Forward |language=en |archive-date=17 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817124740/https://forward.com/culture/3610/a-look-back-at-a-different-book-burning/}}</ref>

In [[Denmark]], a [[comic book]] burning took place on 23 June 1955. It was a [[bonfire]] which consisted of comic books topped by a life-size cardboard cutout of [[The Phantom]].<ref>{{cite web |date=1940-04-09 |title=Fantomet på bålet 1955 |url=http://danmarkshistorien.dk/leksikon-og-kilder/vis/materiale/fantomet-paa-baalet-1955/ |url-status=live |access-date=2017-12-15 |website=danmarkshistorien.dk |publisher=[[Aarhus University]] |language=da |archive-date=26 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161026232901/http://danmarkshistorien.dk/leksikon-og-kilder/vis/materiale/fantomet-paa-baalet-1955/}}</ref>

During the [[military dictatorship in Brazil]] from (1964-1985), several methods of censure were used, among them, torture and the burning of books by firemen.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Raphael Diego |date=2020-09-29 |title=Os livros e a censura em Brasília durante a Ditadura Militar (1964-1985) |trans-title=Books and Censorship in Brasília during the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985) |url=https://brapci.inf.br/index.php/res/download/148044 |url-status=live |format=PDF |journal=Informação & Sociedade: Estudos |language=pt-br |volume=30 |issue=3 |pages=1–15 |doi=10.22478/ufpb.1809-4783.2020v30n3.52231 |access-date=2021-05-24 |doi-access=free |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524150713/https://brapci.inf.br/index.php/res/download/148044 |archivedate=2021-05-24}}</ref>

Some supporters have celebrated book-burning cases in art and other media. Such is the case in Italy in 1973 with ''The Burning of Heretical Books'' over a side door on the façade of [[Santa Maria Maggiore]], Rome, the bas-relief by [[Giovanni Battista Maini]], which depicts the burning of "heretical" books as a triumph of righteousness.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Touring club italiano |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/863551761 |title=Roma e dintorni |date=1977 |publisher=Touring Club italiano |location=Milano |pages=344 |language=Italian |oclc=863551761 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607002020/https://www.worldcat.org/title/roma-e-dintorni/oclc/863551761 |url-status=live}}</ref>

During the years of the Chilean military dictatorship under [[Augusto Pinochet]] from 1973 to 1990, [[book burnings in Chile|hundreds of books were burned]] as a way of repression and censorship of left-wing literature.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bosmajian |first=Haig |title=Burning Books |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc. |year=2006 |isbn=9780786422081 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |page=141 |oclc=62697065}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Schwartz |first=Daniel |date=2010-09-10 |title=The books have been burning |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-books-have-been-burning-1.887172 |url-status=live |access-date=2017-12-15 |website=CBC News |publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607185511/https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-books-have-been-burning-1.887172}}</ref> In some instances, even books on [[Cubism]] were burned because soldiers thought it had to do with the [[Cuban Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Edwards |first=Jorge |date=1984-04-01 |title=Books in Chile |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/03064228408533696 |journal=Index on Censorship |language=en |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=20–22 |doi=10.1080/03064228408533696 |s2cid=144952930 |issn=0306-4220 |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=7 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607002004/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/03064228408533696 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Andrain |first=Charles F. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/811384331 |title=Political change in the Third World |date=2011 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-85889-5 |location=Abingdon, Oxon |page=186 |language=en |oclc=811384331}}</ref>
[[File:Chile quema libros 1973.JPG|thumb|upright|[[Book burnings in Chile|Book burning in Chile]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)|Pinochet dictatorship]]]]

In 1981, the [[Jaffna Public Library]] in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, was [[Burning of Jaffna Public Library|burned down]] by Sinhalese police and paramilitaries during a pogrom against the minority Tamil population. At the time of its burning, it contained almost 100,000 Tamil books and rare documents.<ref name="smithsonian" />{{sfn|Knuth|2006|pp=80–85}}{{sfn|Ovenden |2020|pp=163–164}}

Kjell Ludvik Kvavik, a senior Norwegian official, had a penchant for removing maps and other pages from rare books and he was noticed in January 1983 by a young college student. The student, Barbro Andenaes, reported the actions of the senior official to the superintendent of the reading room and then reported them to the head librarian of the university library in Oslo. Hesitant to make the accusation against Kvavik public because it would greatly harm his career, even if it was proven to be false, the media did not divulge his name until his house was searched by police. The authorities seized 470 maps and prints as well as 112 books that Kvavik had illegally obtained. While this may not have been the large-scale, violent demonstration which usually occurs during [[war]]s, Kvavik's disregard for libraries and books shows that the destruction of books on any scale can affect an entire country. Here, a senior official in the Norwegian government was disgraced and the University Library was only refunded for a small portion of the costs which it had incurred from the loss and destruction of rare materials and the security changes that had to be made as a result of it. In this case, the lure of personal profit and the desire to enhance one's own collection were the causes of the defacement of rare books and maps. While the main goal was not destruction for destruction's sake, the resulting damage to the ephemera still carries weight within the library community.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Thompson |first1=Lawrence S. |year=1985 |title=Biblioclasm in Norway |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J114v06n04_02 |url-status=live |journal=Library & Archival Security |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=13–16 |doi=10.1300/j114v06n04_02 |url-access=subscription |access-date=7 June 2022 |archive-date=9 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211009151758/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J114v06n04_02}}</ref>

In 1984, during India’s attack at Sikh Golden Temple, Indian forces ransacked the [[Sikh Reference Library]] which held invaluable manuscripts and records in relation to Sikh and wider history. Much of the material was confiscated and remaining newspaper archives etc. were burned by the Army later claiming falsely that the fire broke out due to crossfire between Sikh militants and government forces. The whereabouts of large volume of works which vanished during the attack are unknown.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Samachar |first=Asia |date=2021-06-09 |title=Memoricide - Burning down Sikh Reference Library |url=https://asiasamachar.com/2021/06/09/38651/ |access-date=2025-01-27 |website=Asia Samachar |language=en-GB}}</ref>

In 1984, Amsterdam's South African Institute was infiltrated by an organized group which was bent on drawing attention to the inequality of [[apartheid]]. Well-organized and assuring patrons of the library that no harm would come to them, group members systematically smashed microfiche machines and threw books into the nearby waterway. Indiscriminate with regard to the content which was being destroyed, shelf after shelf was cleared of its contents until the group left. Staff members fished books from the water in hopes of salvaging the rare editions of [[Travel literature|travel books]], documents about the Boer Wars, and contemporary materials which were both for and against apartheid. Many of these materials were destroyed by oil, ink, and paint that the anti-apartheid demonstrators had flung around the library. The world was outraged by the loss of knowledge that these demonstrators had caused, and instead of supporting their cause and drawing people's attention to the issue of apartheid, the international community denounced their actions at Amsterdam's South African Institute. Some of the demonstrators came forward and sought to justify their actions by accusing the institute of being pro-apartheid and claiming that nothing was being done to change the [[status quo]] in [[South Africa]].{{sfn|Knuth|2006|pp=43–70}}

===21st century===
The advent of the digital age has resulted in the cataloguing of an immense collection of written works, exclusively or primarily in digital form. The intentional deletion or removal of these works has often been referred to as a new form of book burning.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ruggiero |first=Lucia |date=2013-07-09 |title=Digital books; could they make censorship and "book burning" easier? {{!}} Digital meets Culture |url=http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/digital-books-could-they-make-censorship-and-book-burning-easier/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415075702/https://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/digital-books-could-they-make-censorship-and-book-burning-easier/ |archive-date=2021-04-15 |access-date=2015-10-22 |website=Digital Meets Culture}}</ref> For example, [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]], the world's largest online marketplace, has increasingly banned the sale of controversial books. An article in ''The New York Times'' reported that "Booksellers that sell on Amazon say the retailer has no coherent philosophy about what it decides to prohibit, and seems largely guided by public complaints."<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Streitfeld |first1=David |author-link=David Streitfeld |date=2020-03-17 |title=Amazon Bans, then Reinstates, Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/technology/amazon-hitler-mein-kampf.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331172108/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/technology/amazon-hitler-mein-kampf.html |archive-date=2022-03-31 |issn=1553-8095}}</ref>

A biblioclastic incident occurred in [[Mullumbimby]], [[New South Wales]], [[Australia]] in 2009. Reported as "just like the ritual burning of books in Nazi Germany", a book-burning ceremony was held by students of the "socially harmful cult" [[Universal Medicine]], an [[Alice Bailey#Esoteric healing|esoteric healing]] business which was owned by Serge Benhayon.<ref name="Whitbourn">{{cite news|url=https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/self-styled-healer-serge-benhayon-leads-socially-harmful-cult-jury-20181010-p508ux.html|title=Self-styled healer Serge Benhayon leads 'socially harmful cult': jury|last1=Whitbourn|first1=Michaela|date=15 October 2018|work=Sydney Morning Herald|publisher=Fairfax Media|access-date=27 October 2018|archive-date=15 October 2018|archive-url=https://archive.today/20181015092108/https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/self-styled-healer-serge-benhayon-leads-socially-harmful-cult-jury-20181010-p508ux.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Students were invited to throw their books onto the [[pyre]]. Most of the volumes were on [[Chinese medicine]], [[kinesiology]], [[acupuncture]], [[homeopathy]] and other [[alternative healing]] modalities, all of which Benhayon has decreed evil or "[[prana]]".<ref name="The Da Vinci Mode">{{cite news|last1=Leser|first1=David|title=The Da Vinci Mode|url=http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-da-vinci-mode-20120824-24h50.html|work=Sydney Morning Herald|date=25 August 2012|access-date=2015-01-05|archive-date=15 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115014742/http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-da-vinci-mode-20120824-24h50.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Russian nationalists burned Ukrainian history books in [[Crimea]] in 2010.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2010-03-16 |title=Book Burning in Ukraine Stokes Controversy About History |work=[[Voice of America]] |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/book-burning-in-ukraine-stokes-controversy-about-history-88239147/169847.html |access-date=20 May 2022 |archive-date=20 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520102336/https://www.voanews.com/a/book-burning-in-ukraine-stokes-controversy-about-history-88239147/169847.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Prorussian demonstrators burned books in Eastern Ukraine, 2014.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2014-03-16 |title=Pro-Russian demonstrators burn books, storm buildings in eastern Ukraine |language=en |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-east-idUSBREA2F0P220140316 |access-date=2023-10-25 |archive-date=16 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140316215525/https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/16/us-ukraine-east-idUSBREA2F0P220140316 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Since the beginning of the Yemeni civil war in 2014, many [[Zaydism|Zaydi]] libraries have been destroyed, often deliberatly by Salafi militants. These libraries are a unique part of Yemen's cultural life due to the intellectual heritage included and its preservation of the teachings of the Mu’tazilites.{{sfn|Ovenden |2020|pp=164–165}}

In 2015, [[ISIS]] burned some 8,000 books it had taken from the Central Library of [[Mosul]], including some books and manuscripts dating back 800 years, as they allegedly "promoted infidelity and called for disobeying Allah". Some local bookshop owners claimed that the group was only burning 'normal books' and were intending to sell the rare books on the black market in order to finance their operations.<ref>{{cite news |title=ISIS reportedly burning books looted from Mosul library in Iraq - CBS News |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-reportedly-burning-books-looted-from-mosul-library-in-iraq/ |access-date=5 March 2025 |work=www.cbsnews.com |agency=CBS |date=24 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Buchanan |first1=Rose Troup |last2=Saul |first2=Heather |title=Isis burn hundreds of years of human knowledge to the ground |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-burns-thousands-of-rare-books-and-manuscripts-from-mosul-s-libraries-10068408.html |access-date=5 March 2025 |work=The Independent |date=26 February 2015 |language=en}}</ref>

After the [[2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt|failed 2016 Turkish coup d'état]], the Turkish government burned 301,878 books deemed related to the coup or its alleged leader, [[Fethullah Gülen]], including 18 textbooks with the word "[[Pennsylvania]]" in them. Photos of books being burned became a viral sensation on the internet once they were taken by a website named Kronos27.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Alison |first=Flood |date=2019-08-06 |title=Turkish government destroys more than 300,000 books |language=en |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/turkish-government-destroys-more-than-300000-books |access-date=2021-12-19 |archive-date=19 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211219215310/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/turkish-government-destroys-more-than-300000-books |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=P |first=Jinoy Jose |date=2019-08-08 |title=When 301,878 books were murdered in Turkey... |language=en |work=[[The Hindu Business Line]] |url=https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/the-cheat-sheet/the-cheat-sheet-when-301878-books-were-murdered-in-turkey/article28880482.ece |url-status=live |access-date=2021-12-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808071913/https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/the-cheat-sheet/the-cheat-sheet-when-301878-books-were-murdered-in-turkey/article28880482.ece |archive-date=2019-08-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Andrei |first=Mihai |date=2019-08-07 |title=Turkey burns 300,000 books from schools and public libraries |url=https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/turkey-burns-books-libraries-07082019/ |access-date=2021-12-19 |website=ZME Science |language=en-US |archive-date=19 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211219215309/https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/turkey-burns-books-libraries-07082019/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

In April 2019 Poland, priests in [[Gdańsk]] burned ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books.<ref>{{citation|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47771706|title=Harry Potter books burned by Polish priests alarmed by magic|publisher=BBC News|date=April 1, 2019|accessdate=April 1, 2019}}</ref>

In 2019, the [[French language in Ontario|French-language]] [[Conseil scolaire catholique Providence|Providence Catholic School Board]] in [[southwestern Ontario]] held a 'flame purification' ceremony and burned around thirty recently banned children's books. The ashes were used as fertilizer to plant trees and according to the participants the action was 'to turn a negative to a positive'. The books included [[The Adventures of Tintin|Tintin]] and [[Asterix]] and were deemed harmful to Indigenous people.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gerbet|first=Thomas|date=2021-09-07|title=Des écoles détruisent 5000 livres jugés néfastes aux Autochtones, dont Tintin et Astérix|trans-title=Schools destroy 5,000 books deemed harmful to Indigenous people, including Tintin and Asterix|url=https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1817537/livres-autochtones-bibliotheques-ecoles-tintin-asterix-ontario-canada|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210907160421/https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1817537/livres-autochtones-bibliotheques-ecoles-tintin-asterix-ontario-canada|archive-date=7 September 2021|work=Radio-Canada.ca|language=fr-ca|access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref>

Since the introduction of the controversial [[2020 Hong Kong national security law|national security law]] in 2020, multiple counts of biblioclasm have been reported. Shortly after the introduction of the new law, books written by prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy figures, including [[Joshua Wong]] and [[Tanya Chan]], have been removed from [[Hong Kong Public Libraries|public libraries]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=2020-07-05 |title=Democracy activists' books unavailable in Hong Kong libraries after new law |language=en |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-books-idUSKBN246072 |access-date=2022-06-06 |archive-date=6 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220606190958/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-books-idUSKBN246072 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2021, 29 previously available titles about the [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre|Tiananmen Massacre]] are completely removed from the public libraries, whilst 94 of the remaining 120 titles are only available on request.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cheng |first=Selina |date=2021-11-21 |title=Exclusive: Hong Kong public libraries purge 29 titles about the Tiananmen Massacre from the shelves |language=en-GB |work=[[Hong Kong Free Press]] |url=https://hongkongfp.com/2021/11/21/hong-kong-public-libraries-purge-29-titles-about-the-tiananmen-massacre-from-their-shelves/ |access-date=2022-06-06}}</ref> In 2022, reported by local media, three secondary schools removed more than 400 books since June 2021.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Li |first=Almond |date=2022-06-06 |title=Hong Kong schools should remove books that endanger national security, education secretary says |language=en-GB |work=[[Hong Kong Free Press]] |url=https://hongkongfp.com/2022/06/06/hong-kong-schools-should-remove-books-that-endanger-national-security-education-secretary-says/ |access-date=2022-06-06 |archive-date=6 June 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220606145113/https://hongkongfp.com/2022/06/06/hong-kong-schools-should-remove-books-that-endanger-national-security-education-secretary-says/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Unlike the two book burning happened in the public libraries, the schools were not given any concrete criteria but the schools had to perform the [[self-censorship]] themselves.<ref name=":0" /> Titles that were removed included those related to the [[2019–2020 Hong Kong protests|2019-2020 Hong Kong protests]], Tiananmen Massacre and jailed activists.<ref name=":0" /> In the same year, the Hong Kong government also refused to provide a list of books that have been removed from the public libraries.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Chau |first=Candice |date=2022-04-07 |title=Hong Kong gov't refuses to say which library books are banned under national security law |work=[[Hong Kong Free Press]] |url=https://hongkongfp.com/2022/04/07/hong-kong-govt-refuses-to-say-which-library-books-are-banned-under-national-security-law/ |access-date=2022-06-06 |archive-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220407035503/https://hongkongfp.com/2022/04/07/hong-kong-govt-refuses-to-say-which-library-books-are-banned-under-national-security-law/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

In February 2021 some religious communities in the United States have started holding book burning ceremonies to garner attention and publicly denounce heretical beliefs. In Tennessee pastor [[Greg Locke]] has held sermons over the incineration of books like Harry Potter and Twilight.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-02-04 |title=Tennessee pastor leads burning of Harry Potter and Twilight novels |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/04/book-burning-harry-potter-twilight-us-pastor-tennessee |access-date=2022-12-01 |website=the Guardian |language=en |archive-date=1 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201181359/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/04/book-burning-harry-potter-twilight-us-pastor-tennessee |url-status=live }}</ref> This trend of calling for the burning of books one's ideology conflicts with has continued into the political sphere. Two members of a Virginia school board Rabih Abuismail, and Kirk Twigg, have condoned the burning of recently banned books to keep their ideas out of the minds of the public.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-11-10 |title=Book Burning Urged By Spotsylvania School Board Members |url=https://patch.com/virginia/fredericksburg/book-burning-urged-spotsylvania-county-school-board-members |access-date=2022-12-01 |website=Fredericksburg, VA Patch |language=en |archive-date=1 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201181400/https://patch.com/virginia/fredericksburg/book-burning-urged-spotsylvania-county-school-board-members |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite tweet |last=Burke |first=Timothy |user=bubbaprog |number=1458521438269366283 |date=10 November 2021 |title=You need to *see* and *hear* the Virginia elected officials set forth their plan to burn books they oppose — one of which the American Library Association named a "Best Book for Young Adults" This nation's march toward fascism is turning into a full sprint. https://t.co/jgmfSaAHGU |language=en |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221218121205/https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1458521438269366283 |archive-date=18 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> In September 2023, Missouri State Senator and gubernatorial candidate [[Bill Eigel]] showed off a flamethrower at a campaign event and vowed to burn "woke pornographic books [...] on the front lawn of the governor's mansion" if elected.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bayless |first=Kacen |date=2023-09-18 |title=Republican candidate for Missouri governor vows to burn books after viral flamethrower video |url=https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article279475914.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230918181125/https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article279475914.html |archive-date=2023-09-18 |access-date=2023-09-18 |website=Kansas City Star}}</ref>

During the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]], the destruction of Ukrainian books, especially on the history of Ukraine and the history of the Russian-Ukrainian war, are known. In Mariupol, Russians burned all the books from the library of the church of Petro Mohyla.<ref>{{Cite web |title=In Mariupol, the occupiers burned all the books from the library of the church of Petro Mohyla |url=https://holodomormuseum.org.ua/en/news/in-mariupol-the-occupiers-burned-all-the-books-from-the-library-of-the-church-of-petro-mohyla/ |access-date=2023-06-01 |website=National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide |language=en |archive-date=1 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601185654/https://holodomormuseum.org.ua/en/news/in-mariupol-the-occupiers-burned-all-the-books-from-the-library-of-the-church-of-petro-mohyla/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In the temporarily occupied Mariupol, Russian invaders threw away books from the library collections of the Pryazovskyi State Technical University.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-02-25 |title=Occupants throw away books from the university library in Mariupol |url=https://chytomo.com/en/occupants-throw-away-books-from-the-university-library-in-mariupol/ |access-date=2023-06-01 |website=chytomo.com |language=en-GB |archive-date=1 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601185654/https://chytomo.com/en/occupants-throw-away-books-from-the-university-library-in-mariupol/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Russian “military police” seized and destroyed books on Ukrainian history and culture in the occupied territories in the Northeast of Ukraine. There are also cases of destruction and damage to the Ukrainian archives with documents about Soviet repression and attempts to introduce Russian re-educational programs in Melitopol.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=April 2022 |title=Russian occupiers launch war on Ukrainian history, burning books and destroying archives |url=https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/04/02/russian-occupiers-launch-war-on-ukrainian-history-burning-books-and-destroying-archives/ |access-date= |website=Euromaidan Press |language= |archive-date=29 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230529130200/https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/04/02/russian-occupiers-launch-war-on-ukrainian-history-burning-books-and-destroying-archives/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Sikh book burning==
In the [[Sikh]] religion, any copies of their sacred book, [[Guru Granth Sahib]], which are too badly damaged to be used, and any printer's waste which bears any of its text, are cremated. This ritual is called an ''Agan Bhet'', and it is similar to the ritual which is performed when a deceased Sikh is cremated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.harjas.com/downloads/Press_Release_BC_Sikh_Community_March30.pdf |publisher=Harjas.com |title=Press Release BC Sikh Community |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070615224715/http://www.harjas.com/downloads/Press_Release_BC_Sikh_Community_March30.pdf |archive-date=15 June 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2005-09-27 |title=Seva After A One-Two Hurricane Punch |url=http://www.sikhnn.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=383 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071007130434/http://www.sikhnn.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=383 |archive-date=2007-10-07 |website=Sikh News Network |publisher=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Kaur |first=Gurmeet |title=on the Nicobar Islands after the 2004 tsunami |url=http://www.unitedsikhs.org/ghanaia/0121051.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328065850/http://www.unitedsikhs.org/ghanaia/0121051.html |archive-date=2022-03-28 |website=GHANAIA |publisher= |at=end of the page}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mrsikhnet.com/2006/01/happiness-and-siri-guru-granth-sahib_09.html |publisher=Mrsikhnet.com |title=Blog query about an accumulation of download printouts of Sikh sacred text |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080110133818/http://www.mrsikhnet.com/2006/01/happiness-and-siri-guru-granth-sahib_09.html |archive-date=10 January 2008}}</ref>

==Book burnings in popular culture==
<!-- Please include citations for any entries in this section, to keep it from becoming a list of trivia. See [[WP:INPOPCULTURE]]. -->
[[File:Escrutinio cura barbero.jpg|thumb|1741 woodcut illustrating the examination and burning of Don Quixote's library|alt=Three men look at books. A man lies in a bed under a hanging suit of armor. A woman burns books in the yard.]]
* In [[Don Quixote#Destruction of Don Quixote's library (Chapters 6–7)|chapters 6 and 7 of the first part of ''Don Quixote'']],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cervantes |first=Miguel de |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Don_Quixote/Volume_1/Chapter_VI |title=Don Quixote |access-date=6 June 2022 |archive-date=31 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331172110/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Don_Quixote/Volume_1/Chapter_VI |url-status=live}}</ref> the titular character's parish priest, relatives, and friends examine his library, full with [[chivalry romance]]s and other books, and decide to burn most of them and seal the room. The comments of the priest allow [[Miguel de Cervantes|author Cervantes]] to praise or condemn the books, while subtly satirizing the [[Spanish Inquisition]].<ref name="Romera">{{cite journal |last1=Romera |first1=Ángel |editor1-last=Aguirre |editor1-first=Joaquín María |title=Escrutinio de donosos escrutinios. Estela de los bibliocaustos generados por un capítulo de Don Quijote |journal=Espéculo |date=March 2005 |issue=29 |url=https://webs.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero29/escrutin.html |access-date=30 September 2021 |publisher=Universidad Complutense |location=Madrid |language=es |archive-date=21 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220121081830/http://webs.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero29/escrutin.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Peña">{{cite journal |last1=Peña |first1=Manuel |title=El "donoso y grande escrutinio" o las caras de la censura |journal=Hispania |date=2005-12-30 |volume=65 |issue=221 |pages=939–955 |doi=10.3989/hispania.2005.v65.i221 |url=http://hispania.revistas.csic.es/index.php/hispania/article/viewFile/127/129 |access-date=30 September 2021 |trans-title=The "diverting and important scrutiny" or the faces of censorship |publisher=CSIC |language=es |archive-date=23 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161023160515/http://hispania.revistas.csic.es/index.php/hispania/article/viewFile/127/129 |url-status=live |doi-access=free}}</ref>
*In his 1821 play, ''Almansor'', the German writer [[Heinrich Heine]] – referring to the burning of the [[Muslim]] holy book, the [[Qur'an]], during the [[Spanish Inquisition]] – wrote, "Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn people." ("''Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.''") Over a century later, Heine's own books were among the thousands of [[List of book-burning incidents#Jewish, anti-Nazi and "degenerate" books (by the Nazis)|volumes that were torched]] by the [[Nazism|Nazis]] in Berlin's [[Bebelplatz|Opernplatz]], even while his poem "Die Lorelei" continued to be printed in German schoolbooks as "by an unknown author".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/10/book-burning-quran-history-nazis|title=Book-burning: fanning the flames of hatred|last=Henley|first=Jon|date=10 September 2010|work=The Guardian|access-date=25 December 2012|archive-date=1 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301092101/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/10/book-burning-quran-history-nazis|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=53,190}} 
* Book burning played a small part in [[Jules Verne]]'s 1864 ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]''. After Professor Lidenbrock deciphers a writing of Arne Saknussem and attempts to recreate his purported subterranean journey, his nephew Axel protests that they should study more of his works before making any rash decisions. Professor Lidenbrock explains that this is impossible: Saknussem was out of favor in his native country, whose leaders ordered all of his writings burned after his death.
* In [[Ray Bradbury]]'s 1953 novel ''[[Fahrenheit 451]],'' about a culture which has outlawed books due to its disdain for learning, books are burned along with the houses they are hidden in.<ref name="smithsonian" /><ref name="Romera"/>
* In the 1984 film ''[[Footloose]]'' book burning is a theme that in 2023 was linked to the [[Banned Books Week]].<ref>{{cite news| url= https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/footloose-screenwriter-movies-book-burn-ban-lgbtq-black-222132819.html |work= [[Yahoo]] |title= 'Footloose' screenwriter says movie's book-burning scene was 'rewriting the status quo.' Nearly 4 decades later, he's 'still waiting for the climate to change.' |first= David |last= Artavia |date= 2023-10-03 |access-date=2024-10-27}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Books|History}}
* [[Banned books]]
* [[Bibliophobia]]
* [[Bonfire of the vanities]]
* ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]''
* [[Ideological repression]]
* [[Library fires]]
* [[List of book-burning incidents]]
* [[List of destroyed libraries]]
* [[Maya codices]]

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Baum|first1=Wilhelm|author-link1=Wilhelm Baum (historian)|last2=Winkler|first2=Dietmar W.|title=The Church of the East: A Concise History|year=2003|location=London-New York|publisher=Routledge-Curzon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CnSCAgAAQBAJ|isbn=9781134430192}}
* Civallero, Edgardo. ''[http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC25/articles/WHEN%20MEMORY%20TURNS%20INTO%20ASHES.pdf When Memory Turns into Ashes... Memoricide During the XX Century] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927074136/http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC25/articles/WHEN%20MEMORY%20TURNS%20INTO%20ASHES.pdf |date=27 September 2011}}''. [http://hdl.handle.net/10760/10088 DOI].
* {{Cite book |last=Knuth |first=Rebecca |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/440955600 |title=Burning books and leveling libraries : extremist violence and cultural destruction |date=2006 |publisher=Praeger Publishing |isbn=9780275990077 |location=London |page= |language=en |oclc=440955600}}
* Knuth, Rebecca. ''Libricide : the regime-sponsored destruction of books and libraries in the twentieth century''. {{ISBN|0-275-98088-X}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ovenden |first1=Richard |title=Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack |date=2020 |publisher=John Murray |isbn=978-1-5293-7875-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-P1kyQEACAAJ |access-date=5 March 2025 |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last1=Polastron |first1=Lucien X |title=Books on Fire - The destruction of Libraries throughout History |date=2007 |publisher=Inner Traditions |location=Rochester, Vermont |isbn=978-1-59477-167-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4s-Kb9kv36oC}}
* [http://bmip.info/ The Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project] – A call for Bosnian manuscripts ingathering
* Polastron, Lucien X. (2007) ''Libros en Llamas: historia de la interminable destrucción de bibliotecas''. Libraria, {{ISBN|968-16-8398-6}}.[https://web.archive.org/web/20080918100012/http://www.librossobrelibros.com/libro_12.html]
* Raven, James. (2004). ''Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity.'' Palgrave Macmillan Limited.
* UNESCO. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120905105742/http://www.unesco.org/webworld/mdm/administ/pdf/LOSTMEMO.PDF Lost Memory – Libraries and archives destroyed in the twentieth century]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061003164510/http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/74/3/593 "On Book Burnings and Book Burners: Reflections on the Power (and Powerlessness) of Ideas"] by Hans J. Hillerbrand
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=UkAXPuObVBUC&q=Burning+books+By+Haig+A.+Bosmajian "Burning books"] by Haig A. Bosmajian
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110706180619/http://www.freedomtoread.ca/links_and_resources/bannings_and_burnings.asp "Bannings and burnings in history"] – Book and Periodical Council (Canada)
* [https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-books-have-been-burning-1.887172 "The books have been burning: timeline"] by Daniel Schwartz, CBC News. Updated 10 September 2010.

{{Censorship}}
{{Books}}

{{Destroyed heritage}}{{Falsification of history}}{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Book Burning}}
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[[Category:Book censorship|!]]
[[Category:Anti-intellectualism]]
[[Category:Arson]]
[[Category:Events relating to freedom of expression]]
[[Category:Freedom of expression]]
[[Category:Historical negationism]]
[[Category:History of books]]
[[Category:Protest tactics]]