Banned Books & Censorship

“During the 1920s the phrase banned in Boston became famous because the long-established Watch and Ward Society of the so-called Hub of the Universe was forever getting the city censor to ban books from sale. Many publishers actively sought to have their books banned in Boston because they knew the label would increase their sales in the rest of the country…”

Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, 2d ed, 1988.