Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France

Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France

by Christine Haynes
Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France

Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France

by Christine Haynes

Hardcover

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Overview

Linking the study of business and politics, Christine Haynes reconstructs the passionate and protracted debate over the development of the book trade in nineteenth-century France. While traditionalists claimed that the business of literature required tight state regulation, an increasingly influential group of reformers argued that books were ordinary commodities whose production and distribution were best left to the free market.

The French Revolution overthrew the system of guilds and privileges that had governed the trade under the Old Regime. In the struggle that followed, the new men known as éditeurs (publishers) pushed for increased liberalization of the market. They relied on collective organization, especially a professional association known as the Cercle de la Librairie, to advocate for abolition of licensing requirements and extension of literary rights. Haynes shows how publishers succeeded in transforming the industry from a tightly controlled trade into a free enterprise, with dramatic but paradoxical consequences for literature in France.

The modern literary marketplace was the outcome of a political struggle both within the publishing world and between the book trade and the state. In tracing the contest over literary production in France, Haynes emphasizes the role of the Second Empire in enacting—but also in limiting—press freedom and literary property.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674035768
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 01/15/2010
Series: Harvard Historical Studies , #167
Pages: 346
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Christine Haynes is Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Table of Contents

  • List of Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: The Dawn of the Information Marketplace

  1. The Birth of the Publisher
  2. The Battle between Corporatists and Liberals
  3. Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre and the Publishing Coterie
  4. The Cercle de la Librairie
  5. Louis Hachette and the Defense of the Publisher
  6. The Divorce between State and Market

  • Epilogue: The Effects of Liberalization
  • Notes
  • Index

What People are Saying About This

In this impressively researched and clearly written book on the publishing industry in nineteenth-century France, Haynes argues for the surprising role of the Second Empire in liberalizing the literary market, the centrality of state policy rather than market forces in the deregulation of the industry, and the dynamic role of entrepreneurs in lobbying for reforms. Lost Illusions is an original and important study of the transformation of the literary marketplace from the First Empire to the Third Republic.

Gregory S. Brown

In this impressively researched and clearly written book on the publishing industry in nineteenth-century France, Haynes argues for the surprising role of the Second Empire in liberalizing the literary market, the centrality of state policy rather than market forces in the deregulation of the industry, and the dynamic role of entrepreneurs in lobbying for reforms. Lost Illusions is an original and important study of the transformation of the literary marketplace from the First Empire to the Third Republic.

Gregory S. Brown, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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