Banned in Boston

A lively history of the Watch and Ward Society–New England’s notorious literary censor for over eighty years.

Banned in Boston is the first-ever history of the Watch and Ward Society–once Boston’s unofficial moral guardian. An influential watchdog organization, bankrolled by society’s upper crust, it actively suppressed vices like gambling and prostitution, and oversaw the mass censorship of books and plays. A spectacular romp through the Puritan City, here Neil Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America, forever linked with the infamous catchphrase “banned in Boston.”