A Farewell to Arms

by Ernest Hemingway

Frederick Henry is in the Italian Army’s ambulance corps in late 1917. He’s injured and cared for by Catherine Barkley, a nurse, and they fall in love. Published in 1929, this book was banned in some American states for scenes of their love-making in his hospital bed. Unless I’ve missed something, this, I found, is the raunchiest scene:

It was lovely in the nights and if we could only touch each other we were happy. Besides all the big times we had many small ways of making love…

In amongst all the antiwar rhetoric, this book was banned for that?

Also banned by Hitler and Mussolini. Can’t think why.

There’s also use of the n-word which would get the book censored nowadays.