Research Catalog

Title

A literary tour de France : the world of books on the eve of the French Revolution / Robert Darnton.

Author

Darnton, Robert

Publication

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Subject

• Favarger, Jean-François > Travel > France
• Société typographique de Neuchâtel > History
• Book industries and trade > France > History > 18th century
• Booksellers and bookselling > France > History > 18th century
• Books and reading > France > History > 18th century
• Book industries and trade > Europe > History > 18th century
• Traveling sales personnel > Switzerland > Biography
• Publishers and publishing > Switzerland > Neuchâtel > History > 18th century

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Machine generated contents note: Introduction: Before Balzac -- 1. Our man on Mission -- 2. The View from the Home Office -- 3. Smuggling: Pontarlier -- 4. Sizing up Shops: Lons-le-Saunier -- 5. Selling Books, Collecting Bills: Bourg-en-Bresse -- 6. Entrepreneurs and Buccaneers: Lyon -- 7. Domestic Contraband: Lyon -- 8. The Trade in Trading: Avignon -- 9. The Struggle for Survival in the South: Nîmes, Montpellier, Marseille -- 10. Hard Scrabble in the Southwest: Pézénas to Poitiers -- 11. Peddling and the Capillary System: Loudun -- 12. Upmarket and Downmarket in France's Homeland: Saumur to Dijon -- 13. An Ultimate Example: Besançon -- 14. The End of the Line: An Overview of the Demand for Literature -- 15. Lived Literature -- Acknowledgments.

Call Number

JFE 18-2031

ISBN

• 9780195144512
• 0195144511

LCCN

2017015375

OCLC

982092908

Author

Darnton, Robert, author.

Title

A literary tour de France : the world of books on the eve of the French Revolution / Robert Darnton.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

Description

xv, 358 pages ; 25 cm

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary

"The publishing industry in France in the years before the Revolution was a lively and sometimes rough-and-tumble affair, as publishers and printers scrambled to deal with (and if possible evade) shifting censorship laws and tax regulations, in order to cater to a reading public's appetite for books of all kinds, from the famous Encyclopédie, repository of reason and knowledge, to scandal-mongering libel and pornography. Historian and librarian Robert Darnton uses his exclusive access to a trove of documents-letters and documents from authors, publishers, printers, paper millers, type founders, ink manufacturers, smugglers, wagon drivers, warehousemen, and accountants-involving a publishing house in the Swiss town of Neuchatel to bring this world to life. Like other places on the periphery of France, Switzerland was a hotbed of piracy, carefully monitoring the demand for certain kinds of books and finding ways of fulfilling it. Focusing in particular on the diary of Jean-François Favarger, a traveling sales rep for a Swiss firm whose 1778 voyage, on horseback and on foot, around France to visit bookstores and renew accounts forms the spine of this story, Darnton reveals not only how the industry worked and which titles were in greatest demand, but the human scale of its operations. A Literary Tour de France is literally that. Darnton captures the hustle, picaresque comedy, and occasional risk of Favarger's travels in the service of books, and in the process offers an engaging, immersive, and unforgettable narrative of book culture at a critical moment in France's history"-- Provided by publisher.

Research Call Number

JFE 18-2031