Problems and Policies of Malesherbes as Directeur de la Librarie in France (1750-1763)

Edward P. Shaw

Juni 1966 · State University of New York Press

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Chrétien-Guillaume de Malesherbes was director of the book trade and chief of the royal censors during the tumultuous formative period of the esprit philsophique in eighteenth-century France. As such, no single bureaucrat wielded more personal influence on the professional careers of authors and booksellers, on the progress of letters or the dissemination of knowledge in pre-revolutionary France, than this enlightened aristocrat whom Voltaire dubbed the "ministre de la littérature."

In this study, Professor Shaw has concentrated on the means and manner by which Malesherbes interpreted the loose and complex legal codes governing publishing, and threaded his way among conflicting pressures from the trade, the court, and the intellectual community.

While not a biography or definitive history, this book nevertheless provides valuable source material on a fascinating era. Based upon detailed research in the documents of the Collection Anisson of the Bibliothéque Nationale, the book contains extensive transcriptions of Malesherbes' reports and letters, many of them hitherto unpublished.