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Darnton, Robert. 1982. What is the history of books? Daedalus 111(3):
65-83.
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ROBERT DARNTON
What
Is the History
of Books?
"Histoire du livre" in France, "Geschichte des Buchwesens" inGermany,
"history of
name varies from
countries?its
books" or "of the book" in English-speaking
as an
new
to
it is being recognized
important
place, but everywhere
place
even be called the social and cultural
It
of
communica
history
discipline.
might
is to
tion by print,
because
if that were not such a mouthful,
its purpose
understand how ideas were transmitted through print and how exposure to the
printed word affected the thought and behavior of mankind during the last five
hundred years. Some book historians pursue their subject deep into the period
before the invention of movable
type. Some students of printing concentrate on
forms besides the book. The field can be
and
other
broadsides,
newspapers,
inmany ways; but for the most part, it concerns books
extended and expanded
an area of research that has
so
since the time of Gutenberg,
developed
rapidly
seems
a
to
it
last
few
that
win
years,
likely
during the
place alongside fields like
the history of science and the history of art in the canon of scholarly disciplines.
Whatever
the history of books may become in the future, its past shows how
a field of
can take on a distinct
scholarly identity. It arose from the
knowledge
on
a
common
set of problems,
of several disciplines
all of them
convergence
to do with the process of communication.
took
having
Initially, the problems
the form of concrete questions
in unrelated branches of scholarship: What were
is the
Shakespeare's
original texts? What caused the French Revolution? What
culture and social stratification?
connection
between
In pursuing
those ques
located at the
tions, scholars found themselves crossing paths in a no-man's-land
intersection of a half-dozen fields of study. They decided to constitute a field of
their own and to invite in historians,
librarians,
literary scholars, sociologists,
to understand
and anyone else who wanted
the book as a force in history. The
own
journals, research centers, confer
history of books began to acquire its
and
It
elders as well as Young Turks.
lecture
accumulated
tribal
circuits.
ences,
or secret handshakes
or its
And although
it has not yet developed
passwords
own
can
one
its
adherents
another by the glint
population of Ph.D.'s,
recognize
in their eyes. They belong to a common cause, one of the few sectors in the
human sciences where there is a mood of expansion and a flurry of fresh ideas.
To be sure, the history of the history of books did not begin yesterday.
It
stretches back to the scholarship of the Renaissance,
if not beyond; and it began
in earnest during the nineteenth
century, when the study of books as material
in England. But the current
objects led to the rise of analytical bibliography
65
66
ROBERT
DARNTON
strains of scholarship, which
represents a departure from the established
century origins through back issues of The
may be traced to their nineteenth
or theses in the Ecole des
Library and B?rsenblatt f?r den Deutschen Buchhandel
it took
Chartes. The new strain developed during the 1960s in France, where
work
root
des Hautes
Etudes
and spread
Pratique
du
Lucien
and
livre
like
Febvre
(1958),
by
LApparition
through publications
XVII
le
et
la
du
si?cle
and
soci?t?
dans
France
Livre
volumes
(two
Martin,
Henri-Jean
1965 and 1970) by a group connected with the Vie section of the Ecole Pratique
in institutions
like the Ecole
des Hautes Etudes.
the range of themes
The new book historians brought the subject within
Instead
of dwelling on
studied by the "Annales school" of socioeconomic
history.
uncover the general pattern of book
to
tried
fine points of bibliography,
they
over
and consumption
long stretches of time. They
compiled
production
statistics from requests for privil?ges (a kind of copyright),
analyzed the contents
of private libraries, and traced ideological currents through neglected genres like
the biblioth?que bleue (primitive paperbacks). Rare books and fine editions had no
instead on the most ordinary sort of books,
interest for them; they concentrated
to discover
of ordinary readers.
the literary experience
because they wanted
Reformation
and the
like
the
Counter
familiar
put
They
phenomena
an unfamiliar
much
traditional
culture
how
in
light by showing
Enlightenment
of
the
in
fare
entire
the
the
society. Although
literary
avant-garde
outweighed
come up with a firm set of conclusions,
the
they demonstrated
they did not
new
new methods,
new
and
of
tapping
using
questions,
asking
importance
sources.1
example spread throughout Europe and the United States, reinforcing
in Germany
and printing
such as reception
studies
traditions,
indigenous
a common
to
commitment
Drawn
their
in
Britain.
together by
history
new ideas, book historians began to
for
enthusiasm
and
animated
by
enterprise,
meet, first in caf?s, then in conferences. They created new journals?Publishing
History, Bibliography Newsletter, Nouvelles du livre ancien, Revue fran?aise d'histoire
du livre (new series), Buchhandelsgeschichte, and Wolfenb?tte 1erNotizen zur Buchge
Institut d'Etude du Livre in Paris, the
schichte. They founded new centers?the
the Center for the
inWolfenb?ttel,
des Buchwesens
f?r Geschichte
Arbeitskreis
Book in the Library of Congress.
Geneva,
Paris, Boston,
Special colloquia?in
to name only a few that took place in the
and Athens,
Worcester, Wolfenb?ttel,
scale. In the brief
their research on an international
late 1970s?disseminated
Their
span of two decades,
the history
of books had become
a rich and varied field of
study.
So rich did it prove, in fact, that it now looks less like a field than a tropical
rain forest. The explorer can hardly make his way across it. At every step he
of journal articles,
and
in a luxuriant
becomes
undergrowth
entangled
of disciplines?analytical
disoriented by the crisscrossing
bibliography
pointing
in that, while history, English, and
the sociology of knowledge
in this direction,
territories. He is beset by claims to
literature stake out overlapping
comparative
nouvelle bibliographie mat?rielle," "the new literary history"?and
newness?"la
which would
have him collating
bewildered
by competing methodologies,
law, wading through reams of
editions, compiling statistics, decoding copyright
common
at the bar of a reconstructed
and
press,
heaving
manuscript,
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
67
of readers. The
the mental processes
psychoanalyzing
that one
become so crowded with ancillary disciplines,
contours.
can
How
the book historian neglect the
general
of paper,
type, and reading? But how
publishing,
history of books has
can no
see its
longer
history of libraries, of
can he master
their
especially when
they appear in imposing foreign formulations,
technologies,
like Geschichte der Appellstruktur
and Bibliom?trie bibliologique? It is enough to
make
one
want
to
retire
to
a rare
book
room
and
count
watermarks.
run riot,
To get some distance from interdisciplinarity
as a whole,
itmight be useful to propose a general model
books come into being and spread through society. To be
varied so much from place to place and from time to time
and to see the subject
for analyzing the way
sure, conditions have
since the invention of
the biography of every book to
type, that it would be vain to expect
conform to the same pattern. But printed books generally pass
through roughly
the same life cycle. It could be described as a communications
circuit that runs
from the author to the publisher (if the bookseller does not assume that role), the
and the reader. The reader completes
the
printer, the shipper, the bookseller,
the author both before and after the act of
circuit, because he influences
are readers themselves.
Authors
composition.
By reading and associating with
other readers and writers,
form
notions
of
genre and style and a general
they
sense of the
which
their
affects
texts, whether
literary enterprise,
they are
sonnets
or
directions
for
radio
kits. A
composing
Shakespearean
assembling
to
writer may
in
his
or
of
criticisms
his
work
respond
writing
previous
text
reactions
that
his
will
elicit.
He
addresses
and
readers
anticipate
implicit
hears from explicit
reviewers.
So the circuit runs full cycle.
It transmits
en
as
them
to
to
from
route,
messages,
transforming
they pass
thought
writing
to
characters
and
back
concerns
Book
each
printed
thought again.
history
phase
of this process and the process as a whole,
in all its variations over space and
time and in all its relations with other systems, economic,
social, political, and
environment.
cultural, in the surrounding
That
is a large undertaking.
To
keep their task within
manageable
book
cut
historians
into one
of the
proportions,
generally
segment
communications
circuit and analyze it according to the procedures
of a single
for example, which
discipline?printing,
they study by means of analytical
on
not
But
the
do
take
their
full significance unless they are
parts
bibliography.
related to the whole,
and some holistic
view of the book as a means
of
seems necessary
communication
if book history
is to avoid being
fragmented
into esoteric specializations,
cut off from each other
by arcane techniques and
mutual
The model
shown in Figure
1 provides a way of
misunderstanding.
the
entire
communication
With
minor
it
process.
envisaging
adjustments,
should apply to all periods in the history of the
book
books
printed
(manuscript
and book illustrations will have to be considered elsewhere), but Iwould
like to
discuss it in connection with the period I know best, the
eighteenth
century,
and to take it up phase by
phase, showing how each phase is related to (1) other
activities that a given person has
at a
underway
given point in the circuit, (2)
other persons at the same point in other circuits,
(3) other persons at other
in society. The first three
points in the same circuit, and (4) other elements
on the transmission
considerations
bear directly
of a text, while
the last
concerns outside
which
could vary endlessly.
For the sake of
influences,
movable
3
ou
u
C
S
eo
U
H
S.
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
69
I have reduced the latter to the three general categories in the center
simplicity,
of the diagram.
Models
have a way of freezing human beings out of history. To put some
flesh and blood on this one, and to show how it can make sense of an actual case,
I will apply it to the publishing history of Voltaire's Questions sur l'Encyclop?die,
an
and one that touched the lives of a
important work of the Enlightenment,
One
could study the circuit of its
bookmen.
century
great many eighteenth
at any
the
of
transmission
its
for example, when
stage
point?at
composition,
text
its
and
its diffusion
in order to promote his
Voltaire
orchestrated
shaped
as
his biographers have shown; or at its
campaign against religious intolerance,
a stage in which
to establish
the
bibliographical
analysis helps
printing,
or at the
of
of
in
its
assimilation
editions;
libraries,
where,
point
multiplication
to statistical studies by literary historians, Voltaire's works
according
occupied
an
share of shelf space.2 But I would
like to consider
the least
impressive
the role of the bookseller,
familiar link in the diffusion process,
taking Isaac
as an
and
Pierre Rigaud of Montpellier
example,
working
through the four
considerations
mentioned
above.3
1.
On August
16, 1770, Rigaud ordered thirty copies of the nine-volume
octavo edition of the Questions, which
the Soci?t? typographique
de
to
in
Neuch?tel
had
Prussian
the
of
(STN)
recently begun
print
principality
on the Swiss side of the French-Swiss
Neuch?tel
border. Rigaud generally
to read at least a few pages of a new book before
preferred
stocking it, but he
considered
the Questions such a good bet, that he risked making a
fairly large
order for it, sight unseen. He did not have any personal sympathy for Voltaire.
On the contrary, he deplored the philosphe's
tendency to tinker with his books,
and
while
adding
amending passages
cooperating with pirated editions behind
the backs of the original publishers.
Such practices produced
from
complaints
to
who
inferior
texts.
customers,
(or insufficiently audacious)
objected
receiving
"It is astonishing
that at the end of his career M. de Voltaire cannot refrain from
to the STN. "It would not matter if all
duping booksellers," Rigaud complained
on the author. But
these little ruses, frauds,
and deceits were
blamed
more
the
and
are
still
the
retail
booksellers
unfortunately
printers
usually held
Voltaire
made
life
for
hard
but
he
sold
well.
booksellers,
responsible."4
There was nothing Voltairean
about most of the other books in
Rigaud's
shop. His sales catalogues show that he specialized somewhat inmedical books,
which were always in demand inMontpellier,
thanks to the university's
famous
a
of
medicine.
also
discreet
of
line
Protestant
works,
faculty
Rigaud
kept
because Montpellier
the authorities
lay in Huguenot
territory. And when
looked the other way, he brought in a few shipments of forbidden books.5 But
he generally supplied his customers with books of all kinds, which he drew from
an
inventory worth at least forty-five thousand livres, the largest inMontpellier
and probably
in all Languedoc,
to a report from the intendant's
according
subd?l?gu?.6
from the STN illustrates the character of his
Rigaud's way of ordering
business. Unlike other large provincial dealers, who
speculated on a hundred or
more
a book when
copies of
they smelled a best seller, he rarely ordered more
than a half dozen copies of a single work. He read
his
consulted
widely,
70
ROBERT
DARNTON
and
took soundings by means of his commercial
customers,
correspondence,
to
sent
STN
1785
his
other
him
that
the
and
studied the catalogues
suppliers
(by
included 750 titles). Then he chose about ten titles and
the STN's catalogue
to make up a crate of fifty pounds,
the
ordered
just enough copies of them
at
If
the cheapest rate charged by the wagoners.
minimum weight for shipment
the books sold well, he reordered them; but he usually kept his orders rather
small, and made four or five of them a year. In this way, he conserved capital,
minimized
risks, and built up such a large and varied stock, that his shop
for literary demand of every kind in the region.
became a clearinghouse
stands out clearly from the STN's
The pattern of Rigaud's
orders, which
account books, shows that he offered his customers a little of everything?travel
or
and the occasional
scientific
histories,
novels,
books,
religious works,
of following his own preferences,
he seemed to
treatise.
Instead
philosophical
transmit demand fairly accurately and to live according to the accepted wisdom
as
one of the STN's other customers
summarized
of the book trade, which
is a book that sells."7 Given his cautious
follows: "The best book for a bookseller
to place an advance order for thirty nine
style of business, Rigaud's decision
volume sets of the Questions sur l'Encyclop?die seems especially
significant. He
would not have put so much money on a single work if he had not felt certain of
his later orders show that he had calculated correctly. On
the demand?and
the last volume, Rigaud
June 19, 1772, soon after receiving the last shipment of
more
two
two
ordered
he
and
dozen
another
ordered
sets;
years later, although
its stock. It had printed a huge edition, twenty
by then the STN had exhausted
twice its usual pressrun, and the booksellers
five hundred copies, approximately
it. So Rigaud's purchase
over
rush to purchase
in
the
themselves
had fallen all
a
current
of
that had spread far
Voltaireanism
was no aberration.
It expressed
the
Old
of
and wide among the reading public
Regime.
the purchase of the Questions look when examined from the
relations with the other booksellers of Montpel
perspective of Rigaud's
nine of them in 1777:8
listed
almanac
lier? A book-trade
2.
How
does
Printer-Booksellers:
Aug. Franc.
Jean Martel
Booksellers:
Isaac-Pierre
J. B. Faure
Albert
Rochard
Rigaud
Pons
Tournel
Bascon
C?zary
Fontanel
But according to a report from a traveling salesman of the STN, there were only
dominated
the local
and completely
and Pons had merged,
seven.9 Rigaud
rest teetered
the
and
middle
in
the
Faure
and
ranks;
trade; C?zary
scraped along
in precarious boutiques. The occasional binder and
on the brink of bankruptcy
a few books, most of them illegal, to the
also
under-the-cloak
provided
peddler
more adventuresome
readers of the city. For example, the demoiselle Bringand,
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
71
known as "the students' mother,"
stocked some forbidden fruit "under the bed
on the room to the
on
the second floor," according to the report of a raid
right
that was
booksellers.10 The
trade in most
engineered
by the established
same pattern, which can be
as a series of
cities
fell
the
into
provincial
envisaged
concentric
circles: at the center, one or two firms tried to
the
monopolize
a few small dealers survived
around the margin,
in
market;
by specializing
and
old
clubs
and
volumes,
(cabinets
litt?raires)
chapbooks
by setting up reading
binderies, or by peddling their wares in the back country; and beyond the fringe
of legality, adventurers moved
in and out of the market,
selling forbidden
literature.
he ordered his shipment of the Questions, Rigaud was
his
consolidating
at the center of the local trade. His merger with Pons in 1770
position
provided
him with enough capital and assets to ride out the mishaps?delayed
shipments,
often upset smaller businesses. Also,
liquidity crises?that
defaulting debtors,
one of the
he played rough. When C?zary,
dealers, failed to meet
middling
some of his payments
in 1781, Rigaud drove him out of business by
organizing a
cabal of his creditors. They
refused to let him reschedule
the payments,
had
him thrown in prison for debt, and forced him to sell off his stock at an auction,
When
they kept down the prices and gobbled up the books. By dispensing
binderies; and by exerting
patronage, Rigaud controlled most of Montpellier's
on
the
he
and
binders,
pressure
snags in the affairs of the other
produced delays
In 1789 only one of them remained, Abraham
booksellers.
and he
Fontanel,
a cabinet litt?raire, "which
stayed solvent only by maintaining
provokes terrible
fits of jealousy by the sieur Rigaud, who wants to be the only one left and who
shows his hatred of me every day,"11 as Fontanel confided to the STN.
them in the
Rigaud did not eliminate his competitors
simply by outdoing
dog-eat-dog
style of commercial capitalism of early modern France. His letters,
of many other booksellers
show that the book
theirs, and the correspondence
where
trade contracted
during the late 1770s and 1780s. In hard times, the big
booksellers
squeezed out the small, and the tough outlasted the tender. Rigaud
had been a tough customer from the very beginning of his relations with the
STN. He had ordered his copies of the Questions from Neuch?tel,
where the STN
was
a
rather than from Geneva,
where Voltaire's
printing
pirated edition,
the original, because he had
regular printer, Gabriel Cramer, was producing
extracted better terms. He also demanded
better service, especially when the
other booksellers
in Montpellier,
who had dealt with Cramer,
received their
a volley of letters from
first.
The
copies
delay produced
Rigaud to the STN.
it know that itwas
Why couldn't the STN work faster? Didn't
making him lose
customers
to his
to
He
would
have
order
from
in the
Cramer
competitors?
at
a
future if it could not
lower
When
volumes
provide quicker shipments
price.
one
volumes four through six
through three finally arrived from Neuch?tel,
from Geneva were already on sale in the other
the
shops. Rigaud compared
texts, word for word, and found that the STN's edition contained none of the
additional material
that it had claimed to receive on the sly from Voltaire.
So
how could he push the theme of "additions and corrections"
in his sales talk?
The recriminations
flew thick and fast in the mail between
and
Montpellier
and they showed that Rigaud meant to
of
inch
Neuch?tel,
every
exploit every
advantage that he could gain on his competitors. More
important,
they also
72
ROBERT
DARNTON
even
that the Questions were being sold all over Montpellier,
though in
not
to
in
Far
from
could
France.
circulate
confined
legally
being
principle they
characters
the under-the-cloak
trade of marginal
like "the students' mother,"
Voltaire's work turned out to be a prize item in the scramble for profits at the
revealed
book trade. When
dealers like Rigaud scratched
very heart of the established
Voltaire
for
of
could be sure that he was
and clawed
their shipments
it,
to
his
ideas
in his attempt
through the main lines of France's
succeeding
propel
communications
system.
in the diffusion process raises the
and Cramer
of
how
Rigaud's operation fit into the other stages in the life
problem
a first edition; the
was not
of
the
Questions.
getting
cycle
Rigaud knew that he
STN had sent a circular letter to him and its other main customers,
explaining
3.
The
role of Voltaire
and additions
text, but with corrections
reproduce Cramer's
so that its version would be
to the
the
author
himself,
superior
provided by
at
had
Voltaire
in
of
the
STN's
directors
visited
One
Ferney
April
original.
1770, and had returned with a promise that Voltaire would touch up the printed
to receive from Cramer
and then would
forward
them to
sheets he was
often played
such tricks. They
for a pirated edition.12 Voltaire
Neuch?tel
a way to
improve the quality and increase the quantity of his books,
provided
was not to make money,
for he
and therefore served his main purpose?which
The profit
did not sell his prose to the printers, but to spread Enlightenment.
motive kept the rest of the system going, however. So when Cramer got wind of
to Voltaire,
to raid his market,
he protested
Voltaire
the STN's attempt
retracted his promise to the STN, and the STN had to settle for a delayed version
it received from Ferney, but with only minimal additions and
of the text, which
In fact, this setback did not hurt its sales, because the market had
corrections.13
room to absorb editions, not only the STN's but also one that Marc
plenty of
others as well. The
in Amsterdam,
and probably
Michel
Rey produced
booksellers had their choice of suppliers, and they chose according to whatever
on matters of price, quality,
speed, and
advantage they could obtain
marginal
with
in
dealt
in
Paris, Lyon,
publishers
regularly
delivery. Rigaud
reliability
He played them off against each other, and
and Geneva.
Rouen, Avignon,
sometimes ordered the same book from two or three of them so as to be certain
several circuits at the same
of getting it before his competitors did. By working
maneuver.
case of the Questions, he
room
But
in
for
his
the
he
increased
time,
was outmaneuvered
and had to receive his goods from the circuitous Voltaire
that
it would
Cramer-Voltaire-STN
route.
route merely
took the copy from the author to the printer. For the
to
in Montpellier
from the STN's shop in
reach
sheets
Rigaud
printed
one
to
of
the most complex stages
wind their way through
Neuch?tel,
they had
two
routes. One
main
led from
could follow
in the book's circuit. They
was
not
to
and
Marseilles.
Nice
Neuch?tel
Geneva, Turin,
(which
yet French),
therefore the danger of
It had the advantage of skirting French territory?and
and
detours
it involved huge
confiscation?but
expenses. The books had to
a
over
whole
the Alps
and pass through
be lugged
army of middlemen?
and
entrep?t keepers,
ship captains,
shipping agents, bargemen, wagoners,
storeroom. The best Swiss shippers
dockers?before
they arrived in Rigaud's
That
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
73
a crate to Nice
in a month for thirteen livres, eight sous
they could get
but their estimates proved to be far too low. The direct
per hundredweight;
to Lyon and down the Rh?ne was fast,
route from Neuch?tel
cheap, and easy?
crates
had to be sealed at their point of entry into France
but dangerous. The
claimed
and inspected by the booksellers' guild and the royal book inspector in Lyon,
then reshipped and inspected once more inMontpellier.14
cautious, Rigaud asked the STN to ship the first volumes of the
Always
Questions by the roundabout route, because he knew he could rely on his agent in
to get the books into France without
Marseilles,
Joseph Coulomb,
mishap.
on December
but did not arrive until after March, when the
left
9,
1771,
They
first three volumes of Cramer's edition were already being sold by Rigaud's
The second and third volumes arrived in July, but loaded down
competitors.
with shipping charges and damaged by rough handling.
"It seems that we are
five or six thousand
that he
complained,
leagues apart," Rigaud
adding
to Cramer, whose
not
his
business
had
he
had
shipments
already
regretted
given
reached volume six.15 By this time, the STN was worried
enough about losing
customers throughout southern France to set up a
smuggling operation in Lyon.
Their man, a marginal bookdealer named Joseph-Louis
Berthoud,
got volumes
but then his business
four and five past the guild inspectors,
in
collapsed
to make matters worse,
a
the
and
French
tax
government
bankruptcy;
imposed
on all book
on the
of sixty livres per hundredweight
imports. The STN fell back
to get its
as far as Nice
for
fifteen
livres
route,
per
Alpine
offering
shipments
if Rigaud would
pay the rest of the expenses,
hundredweight
including the
the duty such a heavy blow to the
considered
import duty. But Rigaud
international trade, that he suspended all his orders with foreign suppliers. The
new tariff
to
policy had made it prohibitively
expensive
disguise illegal books as
ones and to pass them
normal
commercial
channels.
legal
through
In December,
the STN's agent inNice,
somehow got a
Jacques Deandreis,
to
of
of
volume
six
the
the
Questions
port of S?te,
shipment
Rigaud
through
was
to be closed
to
which
book
Then
the French
supposed
imports.
it
that
had
the
book
trade,
government,
realizing
nearly destroyed
foreign
lowered the tariff to twenty-six
livres per hundredweight.
Rigaud proposed
sharing the cost with his foreign suppliers: he would pay one third if they would
pay two thirds. This proposal suited the STN, but in the spring of 1772, Rigaud
decided that the Nice route was too expensive to be used under any conditions.
to reach the same
heard enough complaints
from its other customers
Having
the STN dispatched one of its directors to Lyon, and he persuaded a
conclusion,
more
to clear its
dependable Lyonnais dealer, J.-M. Barret,
shipments through
to this
the local guild and forward them to its provincial
clients. Thanks
the
of
three
volumes
last
arrived
arrangement,
Rigaud's Questions
safely in the
summer.
It had required continuous
effort and considerable
expense to get the entire
to
not
STN
and
and
the
did
their
Rigaud
stop realigning
Montpellier,
once
routes
this
transaction.
had
Because
economic
and
they
completed
supply
to
had
their
pressures
political
kept
they
shifting,
readjust
constantly
the complex world of middlemen,
who
linked printing
arrangements within
houses with
and often determined,
in the last analysis, what
bookshops,
literature reached French readers.
order
74
ROBERT
DARNTON
cannot
assimilated
their books
be determined.
can
all
of
the
that
be
located
would
show what
analysis
copies
Bibliographical
varieties of the text were available. A study of notarial archives inMontpellier
indicate how many copies turned up in inheritances, and statistics drawn
might
to estimate
from auction catalogues might make
it possible
in
the number
one
substantial private libraries. But given the present state of documentation,
cannot know who Voltaire's
to his text.
readers were or how they responded
to
most
in
remains
the
difficult
the
circuit
followed
stage
Reading
study
by
How
the
readers
books.
stages were affected by the social, economic, political, and intellec
of the time; but for Rigaud,
tual conditions
these general influences
made themselves felt within a local context. He sold books in a city of thirty-one
an
was
thousand inhabitants. Despite
important textile industry, Montpellier
an old-fashioned
administrative
and
religious center, richly endowed
essentially
a
an
with
cultural
of sciences,
institutions,
including
university,
academy
twelve Masonic
and
sixteen
monastic
communities.
And because itwas
lodges,
a seat of the
and an intendancy, and had as well
provincial estates of Languedoc
an array of courts, the
a
city had
large population of lawyers and royal officials.
in other provincial centers,16 they probably
If they resembled their counterparts
a taste
a good many of his customers and
probably had
provided Rigaud with
not
for Enlightenment
literature. He did
discuss their social background
in his
but he noted that they clamored for the works of Voltaire,
correspondence,
subscribed heavily to the Encyclop?die, and even
and Ray nal. They
Rousseau,
asked for atheistic treatises like Syst?me de la nature and Philosophie de la nature.
was no intellectual backwater, and itwas good book
territory. "The
Montpellier
book trade is quite extensive in this town," an observer remarked in 1768. "The
have kept their shops well
stocked ever since the inhabitants
booksellers
a taste for having libraries."17
developed
favorable conditions
These
prevailed when Rigaud ordered his Questions.
But hard times set in during the early 1770s; and in the 1780s, Rigaud,
like most
of a severe decline
in his trade. The whole French
booksellers,
complained
4.
economy
All
contracted
during
those
years,
according
to
the
standard
account
of
the state's finances went into a tailspin: hence the
Certainly,
to
which
disastrous book tariff of 1771,
attempt
belonged
Terray's unsuccessful
to reduce the deficit accumulated
during the Seven Years' War. The govern
ment also tried to stamp out pirated and forbidden books, first
more severe
by
a
police work in 1771-74, then by
general reform of the book trade in 1777.
commerce with the STN and with
These measures
ruined
eventually
Rigaud's
C. E. Labrousse.18
the other publishing
houses that had grown up around France's borders during
the prosperous
both
years. The
mid-century
produced
foreign publishers
not
editions
of
books
that
the
in
Paris
and
could
pass
original
pirated
censorship
editions of books put out by the Parisian publishers.
Because the Parisians had
a virtual monopoly
over the legal publishing
industry, their rivals in
acquired
the provinces formed alliances with the foreign houses and looked the other way
shipments from abroad arrived for inspection in the provincial guild halls
had used the Parisian
(chambres syndicales). Under Louis XIV, the government
as an instrument
to suppress the
but
under Louis XV, it
trade;
guild
illegal
a new era of
until
the fall of
became
lax,
severity began with
increasingly
when
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
75
1770). Thus Rigaud's relations with the STN fit
(December
ministry
an economic and political pattern that had prevailed
in the book
into
perfectly
trade since the early eighteenth century and that began to fall apart just as the
and
their way between Neuch?tel
first crates of the Questions were making
Choiseul's
Montpellier.
not be
patterns might show up in other research, for the model need
nor need it be
at all. I am not
that
in
book
this
manner,
applied
arguing
applied
a standard formula, but
to
to
written
show
be
should
according
trying
history
how its disparate segments can be brought together within a single conceptual
Other
book historians might prefer different schemata. They might
scheme. Different
asMadeleine
concentrate on the book trade of all Languedoc,
Ventre has done;
as
or on the
of
Giles
Barber, Jeroom Vercruysse,
Voltaire,
general bibliography
in eighteenth
and others are doing; or on the overall pattern of book production
manner
Furet
and
Robert
Estivals.19
But
in
the
of
Fran?ois
century France,
not
out
draw
their
will
its
full
however
define
subject, they
significance
they
as a circuit for
that worked
unless they relate it to all the elements
together
texts. To make the point clearer, I will go over the model circuit
transmitting
or that
once more,
that have been investigated
noting questions
successfully
seem ripe for further research.
of biographies
of great writers,
the proliferation
the
of authorship
remain obscure for most periods of
did writers
from the patronage
of
free themselves
history.
to live by their
was
state
the
in
order
and
What
noblemen
the
wealthy
pens?
nature of a literary career, and how was it pursued? How did writers deal with
and one another? Until
those
reviewers,
booksellers,
printers,
publishers,
are answered, we will not have a full
of
transmis
the
questions
understanding
was able to
secret alliances with pirate
sion of texts. Voltaire
manipulate
not depend on writing for a living. A century later,
he
did
because
publishers
came from
to the
Zola proclaimed
that a writer's
independence
selling his prose
How
this
take
of
bidder.20
did
The
work
transformation
John
place?
highest
an answer, but more
to
research on the
systematic
Lough begins
provide
evolution of the republic of letters in France could be done from police records,
{La France litt?raire gives the names and
literary almanacs, and bibliographies
in
in
of
1757
and 3,089 in 1784). The
writers
situation
1,187
publications
more obscure,
to the fragmentation
states
is
of
the
German
Germany
owing
to tap sources like Das
before 1871. But German
scholars are beginning
gelehrte
in 1779, and to trace the links
lists four thousand writers
Teutschland, which
between
and readers in regional and monographic
stud
authors, publishers,
ies.21Marino Berengo has shown how much can be discovered
about author
relations in Italy.22 And the work of A. S. Collins
still provides an
publisher
to
in England,
it
be brought up
excellent account of authorship
needs
although
to date and extended beyond the eighteenth
century.23
1.
Authors.
Despite
basic conditions
At what point
Publishers. The key role of publishers
is now becoming clearer, thanks
to articles appearing in the Journal ofPublishing History and
monographs
likeMartin Lowry's The World ofAldus Manutius, Robert Patten's Charles Dickens
Stark's Entrepreneurs of Ideology: Neoconservative
and His Publishers, and Gary
2.
76
ROBERT
DARNTON
Publishers in Germany, 1890-1933. But the evolution of the publisher as a distinct
to the master bookseller and the
figure in contrast
printer still needs systematic
to
have
the
of publishers,
Historians
papers
tap
barely begun
study.
although
are the richest of all sources for the
of
The archives of the
books.
they
history
in Marbach,
for example,
contain at least one hundred
Cotta Verlag
fifty
to
have
for references
thousand documents,
yet they
only been skimmed
and other famous writers.
Further
almost
Goethe,
Schiller,
investigation
a great deal of information about the book as a force in
certainly would turn up
How
did publishers
nineteenth
draw up contracts with
century Germany.
authors, build alliances with booksellers,
negotiate with political authorities,
and handle finances,
and
supplies, shipments,
publicity? The answers to those
of
the
would
books
carry
questions
history
deep into the territory of social,
to
and
their
mutual
benefit.
economic,
political history,
at
The Project for Historical
Newcastle
upon Tyne and the
Biobibliography
et de Techniques
at Bordeaux
de
Masse
Institut de Litt?rature
Artistiques
that such interdisciplinary work has already taken. The
illustrate the directions
Bordeaux group has tried to trace books through different distribution
systems
in order to uncover the literary experience of different groups in contemporary
in Newcastle
have studied the diffusion
France.24 The
researchers
process
of
lists, which were widely used in
subscription
analysis
through quantitative
to the early
the sales campaigns of British publishers from the early seventeenth
on
work
could
be
done
centuries.25 Similar
nineteenth
publishers'
catalogues
in research centers
which
have been collected
and prospectuses,
like the
Newberry
Library. The whole subject of book advertising needs investigation.
One could learn a great deal about attitudes toward books and the context of
their use by studying the way they were presented?the
strategy of the appeal,
all kinds of publicity,
from journal
the values invoked by the phrasing?in
to wall
historians
American
have
used
notices
posters.
newspaper
to map the spread of the printed word into the back reaches of
advertisements
the papers of publishers,
colonial society.26 By consulting
they could make
and twentieth
inroads in the nineteenth
centuries.27 Unfortunately,
deeper
however, publishers usually treat their archives as garbage. Although
they save
a
account
throw
the occasional
from
famous
books and
letter
author, they
away
are
sources of
most
the
which usually
commercial
important
correspondence,
for
in
the Book
the Library of
information for the book historian. The Center
a
to
If they can be
is now compiling
archives.
guide
publishers'
Congress
a different
on the whole
preserved and studied, they might provide
perspective
course of American
history.
printing shop is far better known than the other stages in
and diffusion of books, because
it has been a favorite
the production
as
in
whose
of
the
of
field
purpose,
study
analytical bibliography,
subject
is "to elucidate the transmis
and Philip Gaskell,
defined by R. B. McKerrow
the processes of book production."28 Bibliographers
sion of texts by explaining
to textual criticism,
in Shake
contributions
have made
important
especially
structure
from
inferences
backward
the
of a
spearean scholarship,
by building
book to the process of its printing and hence to an original text, such as the
That
line of reasoning has been undercut
Shakespeare manuscripts.
missing
3.
Printers. The
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
77
But even if they can never reconstruct an Ur
recently by D. F. McKenzie.29
can demonstrate
the existence of different editions
Shakespeare,
bibliographers
states of an edition, a necessary
of a text and of different
skill in diffusion
to
studies. Their
also
make
it
the records of
possible
decipher
techniques
so have
a
archival
in
and
the
printers
opened up new,
phase
history of printing.
to the work of McKenzie,
Leon Voet,
Thanks
de Roover,
and
Raymond
we now have a clear
of
how
Jacques Rychner,
picture
printing shops operated
throughout the handpress period (roughly 1500-1800).30 More work needs to be
done on later periods,
and new questions
could be asked: How did printers
calculate costs and organize production,
after the spread of job
especially
and
How
did
book
journalism?
budgets
printing
change after the introduction
of machine-made
and
paper in the first decade of the nineteenth
century
in
How
the
1880s?
did
the
the
affect
Linotype
technological
changes
of labor? And what part did journeymen printers, an unusually
management
sector of the
articulate and militant
class, play in labor history?
working
seem
arcane
to
the
outsider, but it could make a
Analytical
bibliography may
to
as
as
well
contribution
social
if it were
great
literary history,
especially
seasoned with a reading of printers' manuals
and autobiographies,
beginning
with those of Thomas
Platter, Thomas Gent, N. E. Restif de la Bretonne,
and Charles Manby
Smith.
Benjamin Franklin,
4.
Shippers. Little is known about the way books reached bookstores from
the canal barge, the merchant
vessel, the
printing shops. The wagon,
the
and
railroad
more
have
the
influenced
of
literature
may
post office,
history
than one would
facilities
had
little
effect
suspect. Although
transport
probably
on the trade in great
centers like London and Paris,
sometimes
publishing
they
the ebb and flow of business in remote areas. Before the nineteenth
determined
century, books were usually sent in sheets, so that the customer could have
them bound according to his taste and his ability to pay.
They traveled in large
in heavy paper, and were easily damaged by rain and the friction
bales wrapped
of ropes. Compared with commodities
like textiles, their intrinsic value was
were
costs
their
slight, yet
shipping
high, owing to the size and weight of the
sheets. So shipping often took up a large proportion of a book's total cost and a
In many parts of Europe,
strategy of publishers.
large place in the marketing
on
not
count
to
could
in August
booksellers
and
printers
getting shipments
routes
to
because
abandoned
their
work
the
harvests.
The
wagoners
September,
Baltic trade frequently ground to a halt after October,
because ice closed the
to
Routes
and
shut
in
the pressures of war,
ports.
response
everywhere
opened
even insurance rates. Unorthodox
and
literature
has traveled under
politics,
to
in
from
the
so its
sixteenth
the present,
century
ground
huge quantities
influence has varied according to the effectiveness
of the smuggling
industry.
And other genres,
like chapbooks
and penny dreadfuls,
circulated
through
need much more
systems, which
special distribution
study, although book
to clear some of the
historians are now beginning
ground.31
5.
Booksellers.
Thanks
to
some
classic
studies?H.
S.
Bennett
on
on colonial America,
modern England, L. C. Wroth
H.-J. Martin
on
seventeenth
and Johann Goldfriedrich
century France,
Germany?it
early
on
is
78
ROBERT
DARNTON
a
general picture of the evolution of the book trade.32
piece together
as a cultural agent, the
work needs to be done on the bookseller
at their key point of
middleman
who mediated
between
and
demand
supply
contact. We still do not know enough about the social and intellectual world of
men like
about their values and tastes and the way they fit into their
Rigaud,
within
commercial
communities.
which
also operated
networks,
They
like
in
alliances
the
world.
and
What
laws
diplomatic
expanded
collapsed
of
trade
in
A
rise
and
of
the
fall
empires
publishing?
governed
comparison
such as the centripetal
national histories could reveal some general tendencies,
and Leipzig, which drew
force of great centers like London, Paris, Frankfurt,
and
into
their
the
trend toward
houses
orbits,
countervailing
provincial
and
in
dealers
between
enclaves
suppliers
alignments
provincial
independent
are
and Avignon.
But comparisons
like Li?ge, Bouillon, Neuch?tel,
Geneva,
institutions
in different
difficult, because the trade operated through different
different kinds of archives. The
records of the
countries, which
generated
the Communaut?
des libraires et imprimeurs de
London Stationers' company,
Paris, and the Leipzig and Frankfurt book fairs have had a great deal to do with
courses that book history has taken in England,
and
the different
France,
possible
But more
to
Germany.33
A more
sold as commodities
everywhere.
a new
to the
would
of
them
study
provide
perspective
unabashedly
and
Fr?d?ric
Barbier
have
of
literature.
James Barnes, John Tebbel,
history
in the book trades of
element
the importance of the economic
demonstrated
and France.34 But more work could be
nineteenth
century England, America,
for example, and the techniques
of negotiating
done?on
credit mechanisms,
of exchanging
of
and
of
defense
bills of exchange,
payment,
against suspensions
in
The
book
in
of
lieu
sheets
trade, like other
payment
specie.
printed
a
modern
and
the
Renaissance
businesses
early
periods, was largely
during
confidence game, but we still do not know how it was played.
Nevertheless,
books
were
economic
a considerable
literature on its psychology,
Readers. Despite
phenom
How
and
reading remains mysterious.
sociology,
enology,
textology,
are the social
do readers make sense of the signs on the printed page? What
effects ofthat experience? And how has it varied? Literary scholars likeWayne
and Jonathan Culler have
Iser, Walter Ong,
Booth, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang
made reading a central concern of textual criticism, because they understand
literature as an activity, the construal of meaning within a system of communi
cation, rather than a canon of texts.35 The book historian could make use of their
notions of fictitious audiences,
implicit readers, and interpretive communities.
the critics
somewhat time-bound. Although
But he may find their observations
know their way around literary history
strong on seven
(they are especially
seem to assume that texts have always worked on
teenth century England),
they
the sensibilities of readers in the same way. But a seventeenth
century London
a different mental universe from that of a twentieth century
inhabited
burgher
itself has changed over time. It was often done
American
professor. Reading
or
secret
in
and with an intensity we may not be able to
aloud and in groups,
a sixteenth
has shown how much meaning
imagine today. Carlo Ginsburg
a
century miller could infuse into text, and Margaret Spufford has demonstrated
6.
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
79
OF BOOKS?
to mastery over the printed word
that still humbler workmen
fought their way
era
in
of
in the
early modern Europe, from the ranks
Areopagitica.36 Everywhere
from books;
to
readers
of
those
of Montaigne
Menocchio,
wrung
significance
was a
not merely
them.
did
Reading
passion
long before the
decipher
they
is Strum und
the
romantic
and
there
of
"Lesewut" and the "Wertherfieber"
era;
and
Drang in it yet, despite the vogue for speed-reading
literature as the encoding and decoding of messages.
But texts shape the response of readers, however
the opening pages of The
Walter Ong has observed,
Farewell to Arms create a frame and cast the reader in
the mechanistic
view of
active
they may be. As
Canterbury Tales and A
a role, which he cannot
no matter what
and civil wars.37 In fact,
he thinks of pilgrimages
texts
as well as
in which
and
determine
the ways
syntax
style
typography
of
that
the
has
shown
McKenzie
convey meanings.
bawdy, unruly Congreve
of the
the early quarto editions settled down into the decorous neoclassicist
of book design rather than bowdlerization.38
Works of 1709 as a consequence
The history of reading will have to take account of the ways that texts constrain
readers as well as the ways that readers take liberties with texts. The tension
those tendencies has existed wherever men confronted
between
books, and it
as
in
the Psalms,
Luther's
of
had produced some extraordinary
results,
reading
and
the
of
Le
of
sacrifice
Rousseau's
Misanthrope,
reading
reading
Kierkegaard's
avoid
of
Isaac.
to recapture the great rereadings of the past, the inner
If it is possible
us. But we should at least be
of
ordinary readers may always elude
experience
able to reconstruct a good deal of the social context of reading. The debate about
silent reading during the Middle Ages has produced some impressive evidence
where they
about reading habits,39 and studies of reading societies inGermany,
to an extraordinary
in
the
and
nineteenth
degree
eighteenth
proliferated
of
in
the
of a
have
shown
the
centuries,
reading
importance
development
a
scholars have also done
distinct bourgeois cultural style.40 German
great deal
a
in the history of libraries and in reception studies of all kinds.41 Following
maintain
that
often
habits
became
notion of Rolf Engelsing,
they
reading
at the end of the eighteenth
transformed
century. Before this "Leserevolution,"
readers tended to work laboriously through a small number of texts, especially
the Bible, over and over again. Afterwards,
they raced through all kinds of
amusement
rather
than
edification.
The shift from intensive to
material,
seeking
a desacralization
of the printed word. The
with
extensive
coincided
reading
world began to be cluttered with reading matter, and texts began to be treated
as commodities
that could be discarded as casually as yesterday's
newspaper.
This
has recently been disputed by Reinhart
Siegert, Martin
interpretation
"intensive" reading in
and other younger scholars, who have discovered
Welke,
the reception of fugitive works like almanacs and newspapers,
notably the Noth
und H?lfsb?chlein of Rudolph Zacharias Becker, an extraordinary
best seller of
the Goethezeit.*2 But whether or not the concept of a reading revolution will hold
on
up, it has helped to align research
reading with general questions of social
and cultural history.43 The same can be said of research on literacy,44 which has
for scholars to detect the vague outline of diverse reading
made
it possible
two and three centuries ago and to trace books to readers at several levels
publics
of society. The lower the level, the more intense the study. Popular literature
80
ROBERT
DARNTON
has been a favorite topic of research during the last decade,45 despite a growing
to question
the notion that cheap booklets
like the biblioth?que bleue
tendency
an autonomous
common
or that one can
the
of
culture
people
represented
and
between
strains
It now
of
"elite"
clearly
"popular" culture.
distinguish
as a linear, or trickle-down,
seems
to view cultural
change
inadequate
movement
of influences. Currents flowed up as well as down, merging
and
as
went.
Characters
like
and
Busc?n
Cinderella,
Gargantua,
blending
they
and sophisticated
moved
back and forth through oral traditions,
chapbooks,
as well as genre.46 One could even trace the
in nationality
literature, changing
in almanacs. What
of stock figures
does Poor Richard's
metamorphoses
reincarnation as leBonhomme Richard reveal about literary culture inAmerica and
relations by following
France? And what can be learned about German-French
the Lame Messenger
(der hinkende Bote,
across the Rhine?
le messager boiteux) through
the traffic of
almanacs
at what time, and
in what conditions,
about who reads what,
Questions
with what effect, link reading studies with sociology. The book historian could
Bernard
learn how to pursue such questions from the work of Douglas Waples,
on
Bourdieu.
He
could
draw
the
and
Pierre
Paul
Lazarsfeld,
Berelson,
reading
in the Graduate
of
research that flourished
Library School of the University
to 1950, and that still turns up in the occasional Gallup
1930
from
Chicago
as an
strain in historical writing,
he
example of the sociological
report.47 And
in
the
of
the
studies
could consult
English working
reading (and nonreading)
Robert Webb,
and
the last two centuries
class during
by Richard Altick,
onto
the
of
how
All
this work opens
Richard Hoggart.48
larger problem
exposure to the printed word affects the way men think. Did the invention of
universe? There may be no single
movable
type transform man's mental
answer
to
it bears on so many different
because
that question,
satisfactory
as
has shown.49 But
Elizabeth Eisenstein
aspects of life in early modern Europe,
of what books meant to
it should be possible to arrive at a firmer understanding
use in the
taking of oaths, the exchanging of gifts, the awarding of
people. Their
of legacies would provide clues to their significance
prizes, and the bestowing
The
within different societies.
iconography of books could indicate the weight
even
for
illiterate
laborers who sat in church before pictures
of their authority,
in
of
books in folklore, and of folk motifs
The
of
Moses.
of the tablets
place
ran
came
oral
into
when
traditions
that
influences
both
shows
books,
ways
contact with printed texts, and that books need to be studied in relation to other
media.50 The lines of research could lead inmany directions, but they all should
of how printing has shaped man's
in a larger understanding
issue ultimately
sense
to
human
of
the
condition.
make
attempts
can easily lose sight of the larger dimensions
of the enterprise, because
and
into
esoteric
unconnected
often
historians
stray
byways
can be so
even within
the
limits of the
work
Their
fragmented,
specializations.
to conceive of book
that it may seem hopeless
literature on a single country,
across
to be studied from a comparative perspective
as a
history
single subject,
not
themselves
do
But
books
of
historical
the whole
respect
range
disciplines.
limits, either linguistic or national. They have often been written by authors
who belonged to an international republic of letters, composed by printers who
One
book
WHAT
IS THE
HISTORY
OF BOOKS?
did not work in their native tongue, sold by booksellers who
and read in one language by readers who
national boundaries,
to
be contained within the confines of a single
Books also refuse
nor literature nor
treated as objects of study. Neither
history
81
operated across
spoke another.
discipline when
nor
economics
nor
can do justice to all the aspects of the life of a book.
sociology
bibliography
its
the history of books must be international
in scale
nature,
therefore,
very
By
in method.
But it need not lack conceptual
and interdisciplinary
coherence,
that operate in consistent
because books belong to circuits of communication
patterns,
historians
however
be.
they may
complex
can show that books do not
merely
By unearthing
recount
history;
those
circuits,
it.
make
they
References
of
!For examples
Martin,
Livre, pouvoirs
to the books named
in the essay, Henri-Jean
this work,
see, in addition
et soci?t? ? Paris au XVIIe si?cle (1598-1701)
(Geneva:
1969), 2 volumes;
Jean
et la librairie ? Rouen au XVIIle
si?cle (Paris: 1969); Ren? Moulinas,
U Impri
Qu?niart,
VImprimerie
au XVIIIe
si?cle (Grenoble:
Trois
1974); and Fr?d?ric Barbier,
merie, la librairie et la presse ? Avignon
cents ans de librairie et
1676-1830
(Geneva:
1979), in the series "Histoire
d'imprimerie: Berger-Levrault,
et civilisation
du livre," which
written
includes several monographs
along similar lines. Much of the
French work has appeared as articles in the Revue fran?aise d'histoire du livre. For a survey of the field
to it, see
two of the most
and Daniel Roche,
"Le livre, un
Roger Chartier
by
important contributors
de perspective,"
Faire de l'histoire (Paris: 1974), 3, pp. 115-36, and Chartier
and Roche,
changement
"L'Histoire
du livre," Revue fran?aise d'histoire du livre 16 (1977): 3-27. For sympathetic
quantitative
see Robert
two American
assessments
fellow
and
travelers,
Darnton,
by
"Reading, Writing,
in the Sociology
in Eighteenth-Century
France: A Case Study
of Literature,"
Daedalus,
Publishing
and Raymond
"Livre et soci?t? after ten years:
Winter
formation
of a
1971, pp. 214-56,
Birn,
Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century
151, (1976): 287-312.
discipline,"
see Theodore
of these
2As examples
Voltaire (New York:
Besterman,
1969), pp.
approaches,
"Les enseignements
des biblioth?ques
Revue d'histoire
433-34; Daniel Mornet,
(1750-1780),"
priv?es
litt?raire de la France 77(1910):
studies now being prepared under
pp. 449-92; and the bibliographical
the direction
of the Voltaire
which will replace the outdated
Foundation,
bibliography
by Georges
Bengesco.
on
account
the ninety-nine
3The following
is based
letters in Rigaud's
dossier
in the papers of
the Soci?t?
de la ville de Neuch?tel,
de Neuch?tel,
Switzerland
typographique
Biblioth?que
referred to as STN),
from the vast archives of
(henceforth
supplemented
by other relevant material
the STN.
to STN,
July 27, 1771.
4Rigaud
5The pattern of Rigaud's
orders is evident from his letters to the STN and the STN's
"Livres de
its orders. Rigaud
where
it tabulated
included catalogues
of his major
in his
Commission,"
holdings
letters of June 29, 1774, and May
23, 1777.
et la librairie en
au dernier si?cle de l'Ancien
6Madeleine Ventre,
Languedoc
L'Imprimerie
R?gime (Paris
and The Hague:
1958), p. 227.
to STN, August
7B. Andr?
22, 1784.
^Manuel de l'auteur et du libraire (Paris: 1777), p. 67.
to STN, August
29, 1778.
9Jean-Fran?ois
Favarger
of the raids is in the Biblioth?que
Ms.
Nationale,
fran?ais 2207'5, fo. 355.
10Theproc?s-verbal
to STN, March
"Fontanel
6, 1781.
to Gosse
and Pinet, booksellers
of The Hague,
19, 1770.
April
to Voltaire,
15, 1770.
September
is based on the STN's
with
14This account
intermediaries
all along its routes,
correspondence
of Nyon
and Galliard
and Secretan
the shipping
and De la Serve of Ouchy.
agents Nicole
notably
to STN,
28, 1771.
,5Rigaud
August
A Publishing History of the
16Robert Darnton,
The Business of Enlightenment:
Encyclop?die 1775-1800
Mass.:
1979), pp. 273-99.
(Cambridge,
en 1768
"Etat et description
de la ville de Montpellier,
fait en 1768," inMontpellier
17Anonymous,
et en 1836
rich
in?dits, edited by J. Berthel?
1909), p. 55. This
d'apr?s deux manuscrits
(Montpellier:
source of the above account.
of Montpellier
is the main
contemporary
description
La crise de l'?conomie fran?aise ? lafin de l'Ancien R?gime et au d?but de la R?volution
18C. E. Labrousse,
(Paris: 1944).
et la librairie en
"La 'librairie' du royaume
de
19Ventre, L'Imprimerie
Languedoc; Fran?ois Furet,
France au 18e si?cle," Livre et soci?t?, 1, pp. 3-32; and Robert Estivals,
La statistique bibliographique de
12STN
13STN
82
ROBERTDARNTON
la France sous la monarchie au XVIIIe si?cle (Paris and The Hague:
work will
1965). The bibliographical
be published
under the auspices of the Voltaire
Foundation.
1978), p.
20John Lough, Writer and Public in France from theMiddle Ages to thePresent Day (Oxford:
303.
21For
see Helmuth
of recent German
Kiesel
and Paul Munch,
research,
surveys and selections
im 18. Jahrhundert.
und Entstehung des literarischen Marktes
in
Gesellschaft und Literatur
Voraussetzung
Absolutismus
und B?rgertum
in Deutschland,
Deutschland
edited
(Munich:
1977); Aufkl?rung,
by
Franklin Kopitzsch
G. G?pfert,
Vom Autor zum Leser (Munich:
1976); and Herbert
(Munich:
1978).
e
nella
Intellettuali
librai
Milano
della
Restaurazione
22Marino Berengo,
the
(Turin:
1980). On
a less enthusiastic
the French
version of histoire du livre has received
in
whole,
however,
reception
see Furio Diaz,
e storia delle
"M?todo
idee," Rivista storica
quantitativo
Italy than in Germany:
italiana 78 (1966): 932-47.
23A. S. Collins, Authorship
in theDays ofJohnson (London:
1927) and The Profession of Letters (1780
see John Feather,
recent work,
and His Authors,"
1928). For more
1832) (London:
"John Nourse
Studies inBibliography34 (1981): 205-26.
24Robert Escarpit,
Le litt?raire et le social. El?ments pour une sociologie de la litt?rature (Paris: 1970).
25Peter John Wallis,
The Social Index. A New Technique for Measuring
Social Trends (Newcastle
upon
1978).
Tyne:
an extensive
research project on the diffusion
is now completing
26William Gilmore
of books in
see
and economic
of the colonial press,
colonial New
On the political
aspects
England.
Stephen
"
'Meer Mechanics'
and an Open
Press: The Business
and Political
of Colonial
Botein,
Strategies
9 (1975): 127-225; and The Press and the American
American
Printers,"
Perspectives in American History
and John B. Hench
edited by Bernard Bailyn
(Worcester, Massachusetts:
1980), which
Revolution,
to work on the
contain
early history of the book in America.
ample references
see Hellmut
in this country,
of books
27For a general
survey of work on the later history
The Book in America
(New York: revised edition,
1952).
Lehmann-Haupt,
to
A New Introduction
(New York and Oxford:
1972), preface.
Bibliography
28Philip Gaskell,
an excellent
work provides
Gaskell's
survey of the subject.
general
on
Some Notes
and Printing
29D. F. McKenzie,
"Printers of the Mind:
Theories
Bibliographical
22 (1969): 1-75.
House
Studies in Bibliography
Practices,"
Press 1696-1712
The Cambridge University
3(,D. F. McKenzie,
1966), 2 volumes;
(Cambridge:
1969 and 1972), 2 volumes;
de Roover,
The Golden Compasses (Amsterdam:
Leon Voet,
Raymond
of the Plantin Press in the Setting of Sixteenth-Century
De
"The Business Organization
Antwerp,"
"A l'ombre des Lumi?res:
24 (1956): 104-20; and Jacques Rychner,
coup d'oeil sur la
gulden passer
du XVIIIe
de quelques
main-d'oeuvre
si?cle," Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth
imprimeries
a
in Eighteenth-Century
155 (1976): 1925-55 and "Running
Switzerland:
Printing House
Century,
The Library, sixth series,
1 (1979): 1-24.
de Neuch?tel,"
the Workshop
of the Soci?t? typographique
see J.-P. Belin, Le commerce des livres prohib?s ? Paris de 1750 ? 1789 (Paris: 1913);
3,For example,
Le colportage de librairie en France sous le second empire (Paris: 1972); and Reinhart
Darmon,
Jean-Jacques
und Volkslekt?re exemplarisch dargestellt an Rudolph hachar?as Becker und seinem 'Noth
Siegert, Aufkl?rung
zum Gesamtthema
und H?lfsb?chlein'
mit einer Bibliographie
(Frankfurt am Main:
1978).
to 1557
32H. S. Bennett,
1952) and English Books &
(Cambridge:
English Books & Readers 1475
The Colonial Printer
Readers 1558-1603
1965); L. C. Wroth,
(Portland:
1938); H.-J.
(Cambridge:
et soci?t?; and Johann Goldfriedrich
and Friedrich
Geschichte des
Martin,
Livre, pouvoirs
Kapp,
4 volumes.
Deutschen Buchhandels
1886-1913),
(Leipzig:
The Stationers' Company, A History,
1403-1959
1960);
Blagden,
(Cambridge:
et soci?t?; and Rudolf
Der deutsch-lateinische B?chermarkt
nach den
Jentzsch,
von 1740, 1770 und 1800 in seiner
1912).
Gliederung und Wandlung
Leipziger Ostermesskatalogen
(Leipzig:
1964);
34James Barnes, Free Trade in Books: A Study of the London Book Trade Since 1800 (Oxford:
3 volumes;
in the United States (New York:
A History
and
1972-78),
John Tebbel,
of Book Publishing
Trois cents ans de librairie et d'imprimerie.
Fr?d?ric Barbier,
in Prose Fiction
Iser, The Implied Reader. Patterns of Communication
35See, for example, Wolfgang
to Beckett (Baltimore:
The Experience of
1974); Stanley
Fish, Self-Consuming
Artifacts:
from Bunyan
Literature
1972) and Is There a Text in This Class? The
(Berkeley and Los Angeles:
Seventeenth-Century
"The Writer's
1980); Walter Ong,
(Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Authority
of Interpretive Communities
a Fiction,"
PMLA
Audience
Is Always
(Publication of theModern Language Association of America) 90
on these themes, Susan R. Suleiman
and Inge
(1975): 9-21; and for a sampling of other variations
New
The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation
(Princeton,
Crosman,
Jersey:
Press
Princeton
1980).
University
The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller
36Carlo Ginzburg,
(Baltimore:
"First steps in literacy: the reading and
1980); Margaret
Press,
Johns Hopkins
University
Spufford,
33Compare Cyprian
Martin,
Livre, pouvoirs
writing
407-35.
experiences
37Ong,
of the humblest
"The Writer's
Audience
seventeenth-century
Is Always
a Fiction."
spiritual
autobiographers,"
Social History,
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF BOOKS? 83
38D. F. McKenzie,
"Typography
zur Geschichte des Buchwesens,
Schriften
81-125.
and Meaning:
The Case
volume 4 (Hamburg: Dr.
of William
Congreve,"
Wolfenb?tteler
Ernst Hauswedell
& Co.,
1981), pp.
39See Paul Saenger,
Its Impact on Late Medieval
"Silent Reading:
and Society,"
Script
in Viator.
forthcoming
^'See Lesegesellschaften und b?rgerliche Emanzipation.
Ein europ?ischer Vergleich, edited by Otto Dann
has a thorough
(Munich: C. H. Beck,
1981), which
bibliography.
see
4,For examples
of recent work,
und Private Bibliotheken
im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert:
?ffentliche
oder
edited by Paul Raabe
and
Rarit?tenkammern,
(Bremen
Forschungsinstrumente
Bildungsst?tten?
of the stimulus
for recent
studies
has come
from the
1977). Much
Wolfenb?ttel,
reception
theoretical work of Hans Robert Jauss, notably
(Frankfurt am Main:
Literaturgeschichte als Provokation
1970).
und Lekt?re. Zur Sozialgeschichte des Lesens in Deutschland
zwischen
42Engelsing,
Analphabetentum
und industrieller Gesellschaft
als Leser.
in
1973) and Der B?rger
feudaler
(Stuttgart:
Lesergeschichte
Deutschland
1500-1800
und Volkslekt?re; and Martin
1974); Reinhart
(Stuttgart:
Siegert, Aufkl?rung
von
und
"Gemeinsame
Lekt?re
fr?he Formen
im 17. und
18.
Welke,
Gruppenbildungen
m
in Deutschland,"
Jahrhundert:
Zeitungslesen
pp. 29
Lesegesellschaften und b?rgerliche Emanzipation,
53.
43As an
see Rudolf
of this alignment,
am Main:
Volk ohne Buch (Frankfurt
Schenda,
example
recent work, Leser und Lesen im Achtzehntes
of more
edited by
1970), and for examples
Jahrhundert,
Rainer Gruenter
G. G?pfert
1977) and Lesen und Leben, edited by Herbert
(Frankfurt
(Heidelberg:
am Main:
1975).
"See Fran?ois Furet and Jacques Ozouf,
Lire et ?crire: l'alphab?tisation des Fran?ais de Calvin ?Jules
and Education
in England,
Past and
Stone,
1640-1900,"
Ferry (Paris: 1978); Lawrence
"Literacy
Present 42 ( 1969): 69-139; David Cressy,
in Tudor and
Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing
Stuart England
A.
1980); Kenneth
(New
(Cambridge:
Lockridge,
Literacy in Colonial New England
York:
in the West (Harmondsworth:
1974); and Carlo Cipolla,
1969).
Literacy and Development
see Peter Burke,
45For a survey and a synthesis
of this research,
Popular Culture in Early Modern
1978).
Europe (New York:
46As an example
of the older view
in which
the biblioth?que bleue serves as a
to the
key
see Robert Mandrou,
of popular
aux XVHe et XVIIIe
De la culture
culture,
understanding
populaire
si?cles. La Biblioth?que bleue de Troyes (Paris: 1964). For a more nuanced
and up-to-date
view, see Roger
Chartier,
Figures de la gueuserie (Paris: 1982).
47
Bernard Berelson,
What Reading Does to
Bradshaw,
Douglas Waples,
Franklyn
People (Chicago:
The Library's Public
1940); Bernard
"Communication
Berelson,
(New York:
1949); Elihu Katz,
Research
and the Image of Society: The
of Two Traditions,"
American Journal
Convergence
of
65 (1960): 435-40; and
Sociology
Reading in America 1978, edited by John Y. Cole and Carol S. Gold
see the volume
D.C.:
1979). For the Gallup
report,
(Washington,
published
by the American
Book Reading and
1978).
Library Association,
Library Usage: A Study ofHabits and Perceptions (Chicago:
Much
in this older variety of sociology
still seems valid, and it can be studied
in conjunction
with
the current work of Pierre Bourdieu;
see
his La distinction.
especially
Critique sociale du jugement
(Paris: 1979).
The English Common Reader: A Social
48Richard D. Altick,
History
of theMass Reading Public 1800
1900 (Chicago:
The British Working Class Reader (London:
1957); Robert K. Webb,
1955); and Richard
The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth:
1960; 1st edition,
1957).
Hoggart,
49Elisabeth L. Eisenstein,
The
Press as an Agent of
1979), 2 volumes.
Printing
Change (Cambridge:
see
For a discussion
of Eisenstein's
T. Grafton,
"The
of
thesis,
Anthony
Importance
Being
11 (1980): 265-86; Michael
"The Impact of
Printed,"
Hunter,
Journal
of Interdisciplinary History
"L'Ancien R?gime
Print," The Book Collector 28 (1979): 335-52; and Roger Chartier,
typographique:
sur
travaux r?cents," Annales. Economies, soci?t?s, civilisations,
R?flexions
36 (1981): 191-209.
quelques
are taken up in Eric Havelock,
50Some of these general
themes
Western
Origins of
Literacy
in Traditional
(Toronto:
1976); Literacy
Societies, edited by Jack Goody
1968); Jack
(Cambridge:
The Domestication
1977); Walter Ong, The Presence of theWord
Goody,
of the Savage Mind
(Cambridge:
Z. Davis,
in Early Modern France
(New York:
1970); and Natalie
(Stanford:
Society and Culture
Stanford University
Press,
1975).