Robert Dawson
2006-09-12 02:04:49 UTC
Please forgive cross-postings.
Recently published:
_Confiscations at customs: banned books and the
French booktrade during the last years of the Ancien
régime_
By Robert L. Dawson
Published by the Voltaire Foundation, Oxford
University, 99 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6JX, UK; SVEC
[formerly Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth
Century] 2006:07 xv + 315p.; ill'd
ISBN 0 7294 0881 7; ISSN 0435-2866
The French Enlightenment took place against a
backdrop of state censorship. During the last decade
or so of the Ancien régime, the French government
fluctuated considerably regarding its approach to
banned books. On one hand, many were not overtly
prohibited but were nonetheless seized; on the other,
banned books were often allowed to circulate. The
inconsistencies of officials provide revealing
insights into the innermost workings of the system on
the eve of Revolution.
Beyond the customs records, numerous sources were
exploited in order to clarify these inconsistencies
even as the author analyses archival records relevant
to the French booktrade and to works considered
reprehensible. Included are explanations about the
works of major philosophes such as Voltaire, Raynal,
and Rousseau as well as considerable information about
a wide variety of others. There is perhaps no better
way to grasp the scope of changing mentalities during
those crucial years.
An important section of _Confiscations_, based like
the rest of the study on a close reading of hitherto
unpublished archival sources, clarifies the
interconnections between the tacit permit and book
importations, explaining what was happening, and why.
Numerous titles can now be added to recently published
lists of books that got into trouble.
Detailed appendices, mostly based on
unpublished materials, round out the discussion. They
range from banned books and the police (the Bastille,
confiscations at the Beaucaire fair, banned books sold
at auction...) to unpublished letters concerning
Voltaire's _OEuvres_ and transcriptions of numerous
documents. Several appendices together with a
comprehensive index of the book on paper are freely
available on-line at
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~dawson/index.html
(Those are also retrievable via search engines --
google and so on -- by using the phrase
Confiscations123xyz.) The author hopes to add further
illustrations to the web site, featuring contemporary
portraits of some of the major characters.
Table of contents:
Introduction
1. Inspectors and inspections: preliminary remarks
2. Darnton revisited
i. First section
ii. Second section
3. Inside the Registers
i. The Registers
ii. The Records and their significance
a. Confiscations other than at Paris customs
b. The last confiscations in Paris
c. Confiscations at the Paris Chambre syndicale:
selected examples
d. Banned books allowed through
iii. Ambiguities
iv. The 1771-1777 confiscations register
v. Further problems
vi. The Registers compared
vii. Voltaire and his _Œuvres_
Post-scriptum: a few words about selected
confiscations of books by Rousseau and Voltaire
viii. Fleuriot de Langle
ix. Raynal and the _Histoire philosophique et
politique des… Européens dans les deux Indes_
x. Piracies
4. Ancillary archival materials
Introduction
i. The Tacit-permit records and book importations
into Paris, 1778-1789
ii. A list of banned books
iii. Edicts and royal decrees
iv. Customs records
v. Circumventing customs
vi. The _Registres de la librairie_
vii. Selected additional archival sources
5. Conclusion
Appendix A. Two lists of books imprisoned in the
Bastille, 1749 and 1781
i. The first list
ii. The second list
Appendix B. Three letters concerning Voltaire's
_Œuvres_, spring 1789
Appendix C. Selected banned books culled from
Mettra
Appendix D. Books that sent Pecquet to the Bastille
Appendix E. Books seized at the Beaucaire fair in
1766
Appendix F. Customs, inspections and the tacit
permit
Appendix G. Further information about books and
issues discussed in _Confiscations_
Appendix H. Hitherto unpublished documents
Appendix I. More confiscations at customs, selected
problems and cases
Appendix J. Banned books sold at auction
Appendix K. Poinçot's catalogues of books
transferred from the Bastille
Recently published:
_Confiscations at customs: banned books and the
French booktrade during the last years of the Ancien
régime_
By Robert L. Dawson
Published by the Voltaire Foundation, Oxford
University, 99 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6JX, UK; SVEC
[formerly Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth
Century] 2006:07 xv + 315p.; ill'd
ISBN 0 7294 0881 7; ISSN 0435-2866
The French Enlightenment took place against a
backdrop of state censorship. During the last decade
or so of the Ancien régime, the French government
fluctuated considerably regarding its approach to
banned books. On one hand, many were not overtly
prohibited but were nonetheless seized; on the other,
banned books were often allowed to circulate. The
inconsistencies of officials provide revealing
insights into the innermost workings of the system on
the eve of Revolution.
Beyond the customs records, numerous sources were
exploited in order to clarify these inconsistencies
even as the author analyses archival records relevant
to the French booktrade and to works considered
reprehensible. Included are explanations about the
works of major philosophes such as Voltaire, Raynal,
and Rousseau as well as considerable information about
a wide variety of others. There is perhaps no better
way to grasp the scope of changing mentalities during
those crucial years.
An important section of _Confiscations_, based like
the rest of the study on a close reading of hitherto
unpublished archival sources, clarifies the
interconnections between the tacit permit and book
importations, explaining what was happening, and why.
Numerous titles can now be added to recently published
lists of books that got into trouble.
Detailed appendices, mostly based on
unpublished materials, round out the discussion. They
range from banned books and the police (the Bastille,
confiscations at the Beaucaire fair, banned books sold
at auction...) to unpublished letters concerning
Voltaire's _OEuvres_ and transcriptions of numerous
documents. Several appendices together with a
comprehensive index of the book on paper are freely
available on-line at
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~dawson/index.html
(Those are also retrievable via search engines --
google and so on -- by using the phrase
Confiscations123xyz.) The author hopes to add further
illustrations to the web site, featuring contemporary
portraits of some of the major characters.
Table of contents:
Introduction
1. Inspectors and inspections: preliminary remarks
2. Darnton revisited
i. First section
ii. Second section
3. Inside the Registers
i. The Registers
ii. The Records and their significance
a. Confiscations other than at Paris customs
b. The last confiscations in Paris
c. Confiscations at the Paris Chambre syndicale:
selected examples
d. Banned books allowed through
iii. Ambiguities
iv. The 1771-1777 confiscations register
v. Further problems
vi. The Registers compared
vii. Voltaire and his _Œuvres_
Post-scriptum: a few words about selected
confiscations of books by Rousseau and Voltaire
viii. Fleuriot de Langle
ix. Raynal and the _Histoire philosophique et
politique des… Européens dans les deux Indes_
x. Piracies
4. Ancillary archival materials
Introduction
i. The Tacit-permit records and book importations
into Paris, 1778-1789
ii. A list of banned books
iii. Edicts and royal decrees
iv. Customs records
v. Circumventing customs
vi. The _Registres de la librairie_
vii. Selected additional archival sources
5. Conclusion
Appendix A. Two lists of books imprisoned in the
Bastille, 1749 and 1781
i. The first list
ii. The second list
Appendix B. Three letters concerning Voltaire's
_Œuvres_, spring 1789
Appendix C. Selected banned books culled from
Mettra
Appendix D. Books that sent Pecquet to the Bastille
Appendix E. Books seized at the Beaucaire fair in
1766
Appendix F. Customs, inspections and the tacit
permit
Appendix G. Further information about books and
issues discussed in _Confiscations_
Appendix H. Hitherto unpublished documents
Appendix I. More confiscations at customs, selected
problems and cases
Appendix J. Banned books sold at auction
Appendix K. Poinçot's catalogues of books
transferred from the Bastille