The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France - Softcover

Darnton, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393314421 ISBN 13: 9780393314427

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996

Synopsis

Robert Darnton's work is one of the main reasons that cultural history has become an exciting study central to our understanding of the past.

His latest book vibrates with the strange political and literary energies of ancien régime France. The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France traces the merging of philosophical, sexual, and anti-monarchical interests into the pulp fiction of the 1780s, banned books that make fascinating reading more than two centuries later.

French literature of the eighteenth century means to us today Rousseau and Voltaire and the "classic" texts that, we imagine, gave rise to the Revolution. Yet very few of the standard works of the Enlightenment were as widely read as books whose names we have never heard, books that were the currency of a huge literary underground during the reign of Louis XVI. Included in this volume are Darnton's translations of excerpts from three of these works.

After twenty-five years of research, Darnton has summarized his findings in one brilliant work that examines the reciprocal relationship between private literature and the public world, the (illegal) spread of Enlightenment thought, and the interesting possibility that the writings of some not-so-famous authors contributed to the fall of the French aristocracy.

About this title

Review:

More popular than the canon of the great Enlightenment philosophers were other books, also banned by the regime, written and sold "under the cloak." These formed a libertine literature that was a crucial part of the culture of dissent in the Old Regime. Robert Darnton explores the cultural and political significance of these "bad" books and introduces readers to three of the most influential illegal best-sellers, from which he includes substantial excerpts. Winner of the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.

From the Back Cover:

THE BIG Question IN HISTORY OFTEN SEEM UNMANAGEABLE. WHAT CAUSES REVOLUTIONS? WHY DO VALUE SYSTEMS CHANGE? HOW DOES PUBLIC OPINION INFLUENCE EVENTS? THIS BOOK IS MEANT TO ADDRESS THOSE QUESTIONS BY BEGINNING WITH A QUERY OF A DIFFERENT ORDER, ONE THAT CAN BE ANSWEreD: WHAT DID THE FRENCH READ IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY?

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0393314421
• ISBN 13: 9780393314427
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 466