Description
Book SynopsisConfiscations at customs focuses on specific issues concerning banned books and their importation into Paris, including works by Voltaire, Fleuriot de Langle and Raynal, as well as discussing piracies and works published or imported by virtue of the tacit permit.
Trade Review'[Dawson’s] approach brings vividly to life the actual practices of the customs officers whose job it was to try to stem the flood of prohibited or suspect books engulfing France at this time.'
Modern Language Review
'Dawson has written an excellent scholarly work supported by extensive documentation both in print and online. [...] This volume can also serve as a case study in using primary source materials in archival collections. Dawson takes great care to present his methodology in examining two principal registers and in coordinating information from additional multiple sources.'
Libraries and the Cultural Record
'By so thoroughly demonstrating the complexities and interconnections of book censorship and book circulation in 18th-century France, Dawson’s Confiscationsproves to be an excellent resource for scholars.'
New Perspectives on the Eighteenth-Century
Table of ContentsList of illustrations
Foreword
Abbreviations, acronyms, frequently cited sources and special terms
Introduction
1. Inspectors and inspections: preliminary remarks
2. Darnton revisited
i. ‘Fortunately, the syndics […] they kept’
ii. ‘The incidence of customs confiscations therefore provides a final indication of what works circulated most widely in the clandestine book trade’
3. Inside the registers
i. The registers
ii. The records and their significance
iii. Ambiguities
iv. The 1771-1777 confiscations register
v. Further problems
vi. The registers compared
vii. Voltaire and his
Œuvresviii. Fleuriot de Langle
ix. Raynal and the
Histoire philosophiquex. Piracies
4. Ancillary archival materials
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 librairievii. Selected additional archival sources
5. Conclusion
Appendices
List of secondary sources
Index of works
Index of names, places and themes
