What does "censor's blue pen" mean in the sentence?

Question

What does "the censor's blue pen" mean in this sentence?

"...and once again it became impossible for Joyce to get his work published without tampering by the censor's blue pen"

Answer 1

It means that the censor used a blue pen to edit passages that were unacceptable.

Before your work is published, it is read and questionable passages will be either deleted, or you will be asked to rewrite them. The censor in this case is the editor. (And they call them editors, because they edit prose.)

Answer 2

The blue pen is a traditional editorial tool. A censor would use it to mark the lines that would need to come out of a manuscript before it could be published. James Joyce's work was shocking to his contemporaries (still may be today); many things in it would have attracted blue ink.

We're used to the idea of a teacher's red pen, but the censor's blue pen is a less common concept in contemporary, popular Western culture due in part to freedom of speech. Documents received via the Freedom of Information Act in the United States are sometimes partially censored (to protect state secrets or sensitive information), but the censored information is simply blacked out. No blue ink is used.

Answer 3

Someone with a blue pen edited out certain things for a specific reason. Usually things get censored when the statement does not agree with the view of the government.