Royal Censorship of Books in Eighteenth-Century France

Today, we are inclined to believe that intellectual freedom has no greater adversary than the censor. In eighteenth-century France, the matter was more complicated. Royal censors envisioned themselves not as fulfilling a mission of state-sponsored repression but rather as guiding the literary traffic of the Enlightenment. By awarding pre-publication and pre-distribution approvals, royal censors sought to insulate authors and publishers from the scandal of post-publication condemnation by parliaments, the police, or the Church. Less official authorizations were also awarded. Though censors did delete words and phrases from manuscripts and sometimes rejected manuscripts altogether, the liberal use of tacit permissions and conditional approvals resulted in the publication and circulation of books that, under a less flexible system, might never have seen the light of day. In essence, eighteenth-century French censors served as cultural intermediaries who bore responsibility for expanding public awareness of the progressive thought of their time.

Author: Raymond Birn
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 02/01/2012
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780804763592

About the Author
Raymond Birn is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Oregon. His most recent books are Forging Rousseau: Print, Commerce and Cultural Manipulation in the Late Enlightenment (2001) and Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe and the World, 1648-1789 (2005).