The Literary Underground of the Old Regime

France and Culture

by Darnton

Robert Darnton introduces us to the shadowy world of pirate publishers, garret scribblers, under-the-cloak book peddlers, smugglers, and police spies that composed the literary underground of the Enlightenment.

Here are the ambitious writers who crowded into Paris seeking fame and fortune within the Republic of Letters, but who instead sank into the miserable world of Grub Street―victims of a closed world of protection and privilege. Venting their frustrations in an illicit literature of vitriolic pamphlets, libelles , and chroniques scandaleuses , these “Rousseaus of the gutter” desecrated everything sacred in the social order of the Old Regime. Here too are the workers who printed their writings and the clandestine booksellers who distributed them.

While censorship, a monopolistic guild, and the police contained the visible publishing industry within the limits of official orthodoxies, a prolific literary underworld disseminated a vast illegal literature that conveyed a seditious ideology to readers everywhere in France. Covering their traces in order to survive, the creators of this eighteenth-century counterculture have virtually disappeared from history. By drawing on an ingenious selection of previously hidden sources, such as police ledgers and publishers’ records, Robert Darnton reveals for the first time the fascinating story of that forgotten underworld.

The activities of the underground bear on a broad range of issues in history and literature, and they directly concern the problem of uncovering the ideological origins of the French Revolution. This engaging book illuminates those issues and provides a fresh view of publishing history that will inform and delight the general reader.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, France, Microhistory, European History, 18th Century, French Revolution

274 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1982

Reviews

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darnton wants to say that the literary underground helped accelerate the destruction of the Old Regime. This is, of course, an undecidable thesis. On the one hand, Darnton shows how the population became increasingly irreverent as the symbolism of the Regime was degraded. On the other hand, Darnton also shows us how the Old Regime created the conditions that fostered the literary underground. More importantly should the Old Regime keep out the literary ambitions of so many new young writers, pushing them into poverty and blocking their ability to earn a living at every turn, how much of this officiated oppression was also expressed in other channels?

Darntons writing is clear. His use of specific case studies is entertaining, interesting and allows us a glimpse at the frantic hypocrisy these writers were forced to participate in as they faced economic ruin at every turn at the hands of the Old Regime, which cared not what they do. France's policy of absolutely policing of who and what was allowed to be said proved to be their own undoing.

In a way, this book provides us the chance to see how a rising middle class, increased literary agency and expression proved to be too uncontrollable for the Old Regime. This fits largely with Wallerstein's thesis that the French Revolution was not in fact the first sign of modern capitalism arising, but in fact, a symptom that capitalism had already progressed -- the governing population did not realize it just yet -- and a bloody revolution was the only way everyone could recognize that the time had already passed for the old order. In a sense, Darnton's book shows us that the groundwork for a rising new social order had already been laid; and could not be repressed no matter how much the existing government had wanted it to be. Although Darnton really only demonstrates this to us through the filter of literary ambition, it's nonetheless interesting (and depressing) to see how this plays out, to see specifically how individuals navigated their way between oppression and foreign markets for a rising class that demanded books of all sorts, not just the ones that were legal.

In this sense, it doesn't even really matter if Darnton is correct -- that this underground through its literary works played a super important role. The individuals involved (some of whom attained power in the revolution) and their resentment in their impoverishment is enough to show us that this frustration was present. What I mean to say is that illegal books was only the tip of the iceberg.

[Annabelle]

Essai qui repose sur une thèse simple mais efficace: La Révolution est moins le produit des Lumières (L'Encyclopédie étant réservée à une élite) que celui de la littérature "scandaleuse" qui a contribué à désacraliser la personne du roi, la puissance de la cour et plus globalement la légitimité de l'Ancien Régime.

Ce à quoi Chartier (Dans les origines intellectuelles...)répond qu'il ne faut pas surestimer l'impact des livres, quelle que soit leur nature, sur les représentations des lecteurs...

Un passionant dialogue sur l'histoire sociale de la littérature!

[James Dempsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slowly plodding through this wonderful read for the sake of a less wonderful and enthralling essay on press media during the french revolution. Darnton ability to delve the archives and access primary material in the mother tongue of French is an edge which makes this work all the more brilliant for an english audience.

For little old james though, and his poor essay, this is no use. I am using primary translations. I do not feel the creative spark which undoubtedly possessed Darnton when he was rummaging through the archives at the Ecole superior normale or some other venue nearly hugging the tides of the seine.

I hope my lack of inspiration rebounds against itself. It almost has to, as the essay is due in the morning.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A captivating look at the seamy underside of the French Enlightenment. Darnton argues plausibly that it was the illegal literature of blasphemy, scandal, and political pornography, not the more genteel writings of the "established" philosophes (though he probably overstates the latter's complacency), that readied the people of France for the revolutionary rage of the 1790s.

Darnton makes this case by drawing on police files and the archives of a Swiss publishing company, one of many that smuggled books across the border into France. Using these records, he draws vivid portraits of the spies, swindlers, smugglers, and starving authors and printers who kept the clandestine book trade alive during the late 18th century.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This study of the writing and publishing scene in France and nearby countries in the late 18th century is thoroughly engaging. Robert Darnton, a celebrated scholar, writes in a straightforward and delightful prose style, and his subject-matter is decidedly down-to-earth -- you will have no idea just how grubby Grub Street can be until you read this book. Sample choice bit that made me laugh out loud: "Charles Theveneau de Morande, one of Grub Street's most violent and virulent pamphleteers, lived in a demimonde of prostitutes, pimps, blackmailers, pickpockets, swindlers, and murderers. He tried his hand at more than one of these professions and gathered material for his pamphlets by skimming the scum around him. As a result, his works smeared everything, good and bad alike, with a spirit of such total depravity and alienation that Voltaire cried out in horror."

[Rebecca Radnor · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone interested in the causes of the French revolution. A book that studies literary black market that existed in France before the revolution. This consisted of the notorious pamphlets that did everything from push slanderous scandals (the affair of the necklace is a famous one and was even made into a Hollywood film) to books that promoted enlightenment thinking, to others that directly slandered the king. The author's research included sales records from old printing houses (usually outside of France), etc.

[Nicholas Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book on the Grub Street of the Ancien Regime. Each chapter has a different focus, and while he is clear he is simply doing case studies, the studies are quite suggestive. Furthermore, I couldn't help but think of how the desperate authors he describes resemble the adjuncts and journalists of today.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had an interesting idea but constantly disproved what he was trying to say, got really annoying, and probably wen too far on his whole idea of underground literature being a huge influence on the French Revolution.