THE WAY WE WERE

At one time in the supposed century of the Free Market Fairy, Don Quixote was considered inappropriate reading for women.   This is from Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, a biography by Justin Kaplan, page 93:

"It pains me to think of your reading that book just as it stands. I have thought of it with regret time and again. If you haven't finished it, Livy, don't do it. You are as pure as snow, and I would have you always so—untainted, untouched even by the impure thoughts of others." "It is no reading matter for girls. I had quite forgotten the many coarse and in themselves nauseating passages when I sent it to you. No doubt it achieves its aim in a remarkable manner, yet even this is somewhat remote from my princess." Both passages are about Don Quixote. 
The first is Samuel Clemens writing to Livy in March 1869; the second is another eminent Victorian, Sigmund Freud, writing to his fiancee, Martha Bernays, in August 1883.