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Michael Gove has reportedly axed American classics Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird from the GCSE English literature syllabus.

The Education Secretary "really dislikes" John Steinbeck's classic tale of farm labourers George and Lennie, Of Mice and Men, and is keen to increase the number of British works studied by pupils.

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning story of lawyer Atticus Finch's battle against racial inequality in America's deep south, To Kill A Mockingbird, is also said to have been removed from the syllabus.

The Sunday Times reported that one of Britain's biggest exam boards, OCR, said: "Of Mice and Men, which Michael Gove really dislikes, will not be included. It was studied by 90 per cent of teenagers taking English literature in the past.

"Michael Gove said that was a really disappointing statistic."

OCR added: "In the new syllabus 70-80 per cent of the books are from the English canon."

The decision was met with widespread criticism.

Bethan Marshall, a senior lecturer in English at King's College, London, warned children would be put off studying English as a result of the move.

"It's a syllabus out of the 1940s and rumour has it Michael Gove, who read literature, designed it himself," she told the Sunday Times.

"This will just grind children down," she added.

The Department for Education (DfE) said: "In the past, English Literature GCSEs were not rigorous enough and their content was often far too narrow. We published the new subject content for English literature in December.

"It doesn't ban any authors, books or genres. It does ensure pupils will learn about a wide range of literature, including at least one Shakespeare play, a 19th-century novel written anywhere and post-1914 fiction or drama written in the British Isles.

"That is only the minimum pupils will be expected to learn. It is now up to exam boards to design new GCSEs, which must then be accredited by the independent exams regulator Ofqual."