54. Paul Henri Thiry, Baron of Holbach (1723–1789). Common Sense: or, Natural ideas opposed to supernatural... Translated from the French. New York: [s.n.], 1795.

The practice of expurgation continued far beyond the jurisdiction of the Index librorum expurgatorum. Even in the United States of America, a land founded on the principles of religious liberty and the freedom of the press, books with objectionable passages could suffer expurgation that rendered their contents acceptable to authorities. In this English translation of the Baron of Holbach’s atheistic manifesto, Bon Sens, ou idées naturelles opposées aux idées surnaturelles, first published at Amsterdam in 1772, the lengthy footnote on page 137 explaining how priests were “enemies of public liberty” was excised from all copies.