Édition et sédition: l'univers de la littérature clandestine au XVIIIe siècle (review)

REVIEWS 273 Robert Darnton, Edition et sédition: l'univers de la littérature clandestine au xvnf siècle. Paris: Gallimard, 1991. 282 pp. FFr125. ISBN 2-07-0772212-0. The word "sédition" in the catchy title of Robert Darnton's new book must not be interpreted as meaning a call to arms. The "livres philosophiques" (the booksellers' term for banned books), which are the object of this study, are sometimes philosophic, though in a broad enough sense to include the bestselling L'An 2440, often pornographic, but rarely political. If they are seditious, it is because "le livre illégal [...] corrode l'idéologie monarchique et ses piliers" (p. vi). The word "univers" of the subtitle is preferred to "monde," since it covers several worlds that link authors to readers, not just printers, publishers, binders, and booksellers, but pirates, smugglers, "porteurs et colporteurs," as well as corrupt officials and police spies, a whole series of demi-mondes that Darnton's writings have made familiar, fascinating, and important. His book tackles the crucial question: "Que lisaient les Français à la fin de l'Ancien Régime?" His sources are not catalogues of private libraries, records of lending libraries and inventaires après décès, where dangerous books are often omitted, or even state archives and bibliographies, which cover only part of the ground. It comes as no surprise to readers of Darnton's work over the last twenty years that his findings are based primarily on the archives of the Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN), "l'unique maison d'édition du xvme siècle dont il reste des archives complètes" (p. 41). The distinction between legal and illegal books was often difficult to ascertain, even for those in the booktrade who risked imprisonment, the galleys, banishment, or, in theory, deatii. Libraires (the term covers both publisher and bookseller in the eighteenth century) exchanged books, circulated separate catalogues of their mauvais livres, and charged for them according to their quality, novelty, notoriety, scarcity—often twice as much per sheet as for licit works. Getting them to readers required tricks such as disguising copies of Vénus dans le cloître as Bibles or liturgies, using assureurs (smugglers), and bribing officials. Each stage in a clandestine book's progress from producer to consumer, each trade that was involved, is described here in graphic detail, with apt quotations, maps, lists, and analyses of information culled from the STN. In die last two chapters and in the first appendix, which are the newest section of the book, Darnton establishes the top thirty-five bestsellers, the top twenty-three authors, and the relative popularity of the various genres, as revealed by the orders received at the STN. He argues, furthermore, that from these statistics valid general conclusions may be drawn: "Les commandes enregistrées par les archives à Neuchâtel portent sur l'ensemble de la production des livres, particulièrement celles des 'livres philosophiques,' entre 1769 et 1789. En cela, elles permettent une saisie globale de la librairie clandestine dans la France du xvme siècle" (p. 161, my emphasis). Against this argument several caveats and objections must be mentioned, with most of which Darnton deals. The STN was a fairly large libraire, operating in a specific area over a relatively short period (1769-89 as publishers, a further six years as booksellers ). By a quirk of history, Neuchâtel was under Prussian rule, so the STN enjoyed considerable freedom, specializing in new editions of banned books. Its records thus offer little evidence to assess the relative popularity of works enjoying a French permission tacite or tolérance, where French publishers got the lion's share of the market. Works which enjoyed a succès de scandale just as the stn started business tend to score highly, especially when the STN itself published a new edition, as was the case with Holbach 's Système de la nature (1771) and Raynal's Histoire des deux Indes (1772). Polemical works of ephemeral interest, such as those concerning the Maupeou coup d'état of 1771, also score highly and elevate the hack writer Pidansart de Mairobert to third place behind Voltaire and...