The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769-1789

The world of illegal publishing in eighteenth-century France was large and varied, taking in the greatest works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Diderot, as well as the scandalous books of grub street writers. Here we have a map of that world, constructed by Robert Darnton based on his many years of research in the field. Darnton shows us the scope of this literary underground with a complete bibliography of the hundreds of books that circulated "under the cloak." He documents their geographical distribution throughout France, and measures the levels of demand for these books. By ranking these levels of demand he compiles a bestseller list of illegal books, with surprising results.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 03/01/1995
ISBN: 9780393332674
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.61d