Rogues, Rascals and Rude Books: Policing the Popular Book Trade in Early-Nineteenth-Century France

The printed word was a crucial element in the political and cultural history of France throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Despite frequent episodes of intrusive and restrictive state censorship, the book production and distribution industry in France developed progressively, sustained by an ever-increasing demand, and facilitated by important technological innovations and the gradual relaxation of official restrictions. Other, more marginal elements of the French book industry, particularly the migrant trading in popular books and pamphlets which had developed rapidly during the eighteenth century, were subjected to persistent official hostility in the belief that this form of book distribution represented the greatest threat to political stability and the moral order. The harsh restrictions imposed on this type of trading, coupled with structural economic changes which favoured the sedentary and capital-intensive book-sellers, brought about the virtual eradication of migrant book selling by 1870. Although the volume and variety of reading material produced and distributed in France during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries certainly increased, the demise of the migrant book seller significantly altered the nature of French literature culture and the experience of reading for the bulk of the French people.