Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature

Examines three eras of state censorship; eighteenth-century France, 19th century British Raj, and 20th century Communist East Germany.

Contents:
Bourbon France : privilege and repression -- Typography and legality -- The censor's point of view -- Everyday operations -- Problem cases -- Scandal and enlightenment -- The book police -- An author in the servants' quarters -- A distribution system, capillaries and arteries -- British India : liberalism and imperialism -- Amateur ethnography -- Melodrama -- Surveillance -- Sedition? -- Repression -- Courtroom hermeneutics -- Wandering minstrels -- The basic contradiction -- Communist East Germany : planning and persecution -- Native informants -- Inside the archives -- Relations with authors -- Author-editor negotiations -- Hard knocks -- A play : the show must not go on -- A novel : publish and pulp -- How censorship ended