Robert Darnton
Author of The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
About the Author
Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and University Librarian, Emeritus, at Harvard University. His honors include a MacArthur Prize, the National Humanities Medal, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Image credit: Robert Darnton, historien américain, dans les bureaux des Éditions Gallimard, à Paris, le 6 septembre 2024
Works by Robert Darnton
The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984) 1,447 copies, 13 reviews
George Washington's False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century (1997) 114 copies
The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Material Texts) (2009) 80 copies, 1 review
Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris (2010) 58 copies, 1 review
A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution (2017) — Author — 44 copies
El coloquio de los lectores. Ensayos sobre autores, manuscritos, editores y lectores (Spanish Edition) (2003) 13 copies
The Widening Circle: Essays on the Circulation of Literature in Eighteenth-Century Europe (The Haney Foundation Series ; (1976) 10 copies
L'Affaire des Quatorze: Poésie, police et réseaux de communication à Paris au XVIIIᵉ siècle (2014) 4 copies
An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Presidential Address) 1 copy
The Library in the New Age 1 copy
Associated Works
Histoire du livre et de l'édition: Production & circulation, formes & mutations (2021) — Afterword, some editions — 21 copies
Books and society in history : papers of the Association of College and Research Libraries rare books and manuscripts preconference, 24-28 June, 1980, Boston, Massachusetts (1983) — Contributor — 11 copies
Knowledge Unbound: Selected Writings on Open Access, 2002--2011 (MIT Press) (2016) — Foreword — 6 copies
La police des métiers du livre à Paris au siècle des Lumières: "Historique des libraires et imprimeurs de Paris existans en 1752" de l'inspecteur… (2017) — Preface, some editions — 2 copies
Book History (Volume 20) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Darnton, Robert
- Legal name
- Darnton, Robert Choate
- Birthdate
- 1939-05-10
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Oxford (B.Phil|1962| D.Phil|1964)
Harvard University (AB|1960) - Occupations
- journalist
cultural historian
founder Gutenberg-e program
academic librarian
professor - Organizations
- Harvard University
Princeton University
International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (president ∙ 1987-1991)
American Historical Association (president ∙ 1999) - Awards and honors
- Légion d'Honneur (Chevalier, 1999)
Gutenberg prize (2004)
Rhodes Scholar (1962)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Fellow, 1980)
MacArthur Fellowship (1982)
American Philosophical Society (1989) (show all 21)
American Antiquarian Society (1983)
Academia Europaea (1994)
Académie Royale de Langue et de Littérature Françaises de Belgique (1995)
Koren Prize (1973)
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officier, 1993)
Priz Medicis (1991)
Prix Chateaubriand (1991)
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier, 1988)
Gutenberg Prize (2004)
Prix France-Ameriques (2011)
Leo Gershoy Prize (1979)
Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1984)
National Humanities Medal (2012)
Del Duca World Prize (2013)
American Printing History Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2005) - Relationships
- Darnton, John (brother)
Darnton, Byron (father) - Short biography
- Robert Darnton was educated at Harvard University (A.B., 1960) and Oxford University (B.Phil., 1962; D. Phil., 1964), where he was a Rhodes scholar. After a brief stint as a reporter for The New York Times, he became a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard. He taught at Princeton from 1968 until 2007, when he became Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library at Harvard. He has been a visiting professor or fellow at many universities and institutes for advanced study, and his outside activities include service as a trustee of the New York Public Library and the Oxford University Press (USA) and terms as president of the American Historical Association and the International Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. Among his honors are a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award, election to the French Legion of Honor, the National Humanities Medal conferred by President Obama in February 2012, and the Del Duca World Prize in the Humanities awarded by the Institut de France in 2013. He has written and edited many books, including The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie (1979, an early attempt to develop the history of books as a field of study), The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984, probably his most popular work, which has been translated into 18 languages), Berlin Journal, 1989-1990, (1991, an account of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of East Germany), and The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France (1995, a study of the underground book trade). His latest books are The Case for Books (2009), The Devil in the Holy Water, or The Art of Slander in France from Louis XIV to Napoleon (2009), and Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris (2010).
http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people... - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Princeton, New Jersey, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon by Robert Darnton (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) is a dense, detailed and utterly captivating history of French libelous publications in the second half of the 18th century. In pre-Revolutionary France, where publishing was tightly controlled (by 1789 the government employed nearly 200 censors, Darnton reports) these anonymous texts (described as "slanderous, tendentious, wicked, indecent, and very good show more reading", p. 4) were important enough (and sold so well!) to warrant significant attention from those at the highest levels of power in the French government.
Darnton's book, he writes, is designed to "explore this body of literature and the subculture that generated it" (p. 5). He adds "The study of slander in eighteenth-century France is particularly revealing because it shows how a literary current eroded authority under an absolute monarchy and became absorbed in a republican political culture ...." (p. 6-7). He begins by offering close visual and textual readings of four interconnected libels, which enable him to trace the trajectory of the genre and provide a useful case study of the cast of characters, conventions used by the authors, &c.
The examples Darnton chooses couldn't have worked better: stretching across the time period under consideration, they offer a wide range of authorial and typographical choices, and allow him to branch out for interrelated expositions at well-paced intervals. This section of the book is accompanied by excellent complementary illustrations, which enhance the text particularly well.
Following the case studies, Darnton reaches more deeply into various components of the story. His examination of the London colony of French libelers and the efforts by the French authorities to put an end to them reads like a thriller novel, complete with undercover agents, (sometimes double and triple agents); bribes; blackmail efforts; attempts to rewrite English law, &c. Darnton's interest in the smuggling industry (which got the printed libels into France) is obvious, and his enthusiasm is infectious.
But Darnton doesn't limit himself to the stories. His strengths as one of the greatest interdisciplinary historians of the book are on full display here: he offers a close bibliographical reading of the ingredients of libels themselves (basically gossip, despotism, and depravity; also, the pages on plagiarism remind me of Lawrence Lessig's "remix" idea), the publishing industry which brought these libels into being, works toward an understanding of how the libels were received by the reading public (strong conclusions are not possible here given the lack of evidence, but he is able to reach some tentative conclusions), and delves deeply into the political and social history of France to point out the important ways in which these texts served to undermine the Ancien Regime. By attacking the personalities of those in power (up to and including the king and queen themselves), and feeding the hunger of the news-starved people for information, the example of these libels, he concludes, help us "understand how authoritarian regimes can be vulnerable to words and how well-placed words can mobilize the mysterious force known as public opinion" (p. 445).
This book also offers various points of focus for future study: Darnton points out Les Bohemiens, the fascinating novel and utterly forgotten Shandyesque novel written by imprisoned libeler the Marquis de Pelleport (anybody up for translating? [update - never mind, Penn's published it - good for them!)], and his contrast between the English reaction to libel and the French is certainly fascinating, among others.
Not a light read, but well worth the effort.
http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/02/book-review-devil-in-holy-water.html show less
Darnton's book, he writes, is designed to "explore this body of literature and the subculture that generated it" (p. 5). He adds "The study of slander in eighteenth-century France is particularly revealing because it shows how a literary current eroded authority under an absolute monarchy and became absorbed in a republican political culture ...." (p. 6-7). He begins by offering close visual and textual readings of four interconnected libels, which enable him to trace the trajectory of the genre and provide a useful case study of the cast of characters, conventions used by the authors, &c.
The examples Darnton chooses couldn't have worked better: stretching across the time period under consideration, they offer a wide range of authorial and typographical choices, and allow him to branch out for interrelated expositions at well-paced intervals. This section of the book is accompanied by excellent complementary illustrations, which enhance the text particularly well.
Following the case studies, Darnton reaches more deeply into various components of the story. His examination of the London colony of French libelers and the efforts by the French authorities to put an end to them reads like a thriller novel, complete with undercover agents, (sometimes double and triple agents); bribes; blackmail efforts; attempts to rewrite English law, &c. Darnton's interest in the smuggling industry (which got the printed libels into France) is obvious, and his enthusiasm is infectious.
But Darnton doesn't limit himself to the stories. His strengths as one of the greatest interdisciplinary historians of the book are on full display here: he offers a close bibliographical reading of the ingredients of libels themselves (basically gossip, despotism, and depravity; also, the pages on plagiarism remind me of Lawrence Lessig's "remix" idea), the publishing industry which brought these libels into being, works toward an understanding of how the libels were received by the reading public (strong conclusions are not possible here given the lack of evidence, but he is able to reach some tentative conclusions), and delves deeply into the political and social history of France to point out the important ways in which these texts served to undermine the Ancien Regime. By attacking the personalities of those in power (up to and including the king and queen themselves), and feeding the hunger of the news-starved people for information, the example of these libels, he concludes, help us "understand how authoritarian regimes can be vulnerable to words and how well-placed words can mobilize the mysterious force known as public opinion" (p. 445).
This book also offers various points of focus for future study: Darnton points out Les Bohemiens, the fascinating novel and utterly forgotten Shandyesque novel written by imprisoned libeler the Marquis de Pelleport (anybody up for translating? [update - never mind, Penn's published it - good for them!)], and his contrast between the English reaction to libel and the French is certainly fascinating, among others.
Not a light read, but well worth the effort.
http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/02/book-review-devil-in-holy-water.html show less
The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History (Penguin Classic History) by Robert Darnton
“We constantly need to be shaken out of a false sense of familiarity with the past, to be administered doses of cultural shock.”
Darnton says that to really appreciate documents and literature from the past we should try and place ourselves in the minds of the people of the time. We should try and view the world through their eyes so that we can have a better understanding of their culture (the way things worked for them).
Darnton has written six essays (and a conclusion) on documents show more that throw up challenges of cultural understanding for the modern reader. He has chosen a period of French History 1697-1784: the Ancien Régime of a more feudal France, although under attack from the growing class of the bourgeoise and the more scientific ideas of the enlightenment, was still a relatively stable period: the French revolution was just around the corner (starting in 1789). Darnton claims that in some respects the documents chosen reveal an alien mentality, that goes beyond our understanding. As modern readers we need to know the context surrounding the documents and the culture of the times, otherwise we may falsely interpret them and get a twisted view of their meaning. The documents chosen are not necessarily controversial, but Darnton is able to use them to make his points, which he does in an entertaining and informative way. Many of us with modern views on animal welfare; and pet lovers to boot, would be horrified by his second essay: titled The Great Cat Massacre, depicting a ritual slaughter of cats, which of course is exactly the point.
The first essay “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose” compares various folk tales, but here Darnton already finds himself on somewhat dodgy ground, because many of these tales were not written down until much later than when they were in circulation. However by comparing the same tale from different country’s allows the cultural historian to sift out qualities that make them peculiarly French. He is on more solid ground with Workers Revolt: ‘The Great Cat Massacre of Saint-Séverin.’ This is from a document that tells the story of Nicholas Contat a printers apprentice working in appalling conditions in Paris during late 1730’s. The ritualistic killing of cats, by particularly cruel methods was something that happened fairly regularly in many layers of society, but this is not the point of this story for an Eighteenth century French person, who would be much more concerned with a workers revolt. In a ‘Bourgeoise puts his World in Order; The City as Text,’ Darnton takes a description of Montpellier (a large town in South West France) and teases from it those points that make it curious for modern readers. ‘A Police Inspector Sorts His Files’ is an essay about a dossier left by a police inspector, whose job seemed to be to keep records of all known authors/playwrights/pamphleteers during a five year period starting from 1748. What makes the dossier particularly interesting is the police Inspectors personal comments on the authors he was ‘spying on”. The final two essays bring us to the period of the enlightenment. The first of these concerns the new ideas that can be gleaned from a study of Diderot’s Encyclopedie, however It is the second essay ‘Reader respond to Rousseau’ that provides a suitable climax to the book. From a collection of letters written by Jean Ransom: a fan of Jean-Jaques Rousseau he examines a readers response to the celebrated author. Rousseau himself was conscious of how readers should respond to his writing and so he gave them advice on how they should read his work. He wanted to be seen as some sort of divine prophet on the one hand and yet wanted readers also to suspend belief on the other. This essay also provides an insight into early fan worship.
Darnton’s book was published over forty years ago at a time when cultural history was making something of a breakthrough and is now considered an exemplar of the genre. It has as much to say about how we read as it does cultural history and because it is so well written it will be of interest to anyone who reads books for pleasure and/or for information. Valuable lessons perhaps for modern readers, when reading books from an ‘alien culture’; for example those of us who dip into science fiction of the 1950’s and struggle to get past some of the sexism and racism that can be inherent in the genre: an alien culture and it is only 60 years ago. Darnton’s conclusion raises as many questions as possible answers provided when he examines his own methods: our conception of times past is ever changing, but perhaps the cultural historian is better placed with his ability to follow his nose and trust to his sense of smell. You don’t need to know anything about French history to appreciate the ideas thrown up by these essays, you just need to enjoy reading. Great stuff and five stars. show less
Darnton says that to really appreciate documents and literature from the past we should try and place ourselves in the minds of the people of the time. We should try and view the world through their eyes so that we can have a better understanding of their culture (the way things worked for them).
Darnton has written six essays (and a conclusion) on documents show more that throw up challenges of cultural understanding for the modern reader. He has chosen a period of French History 1697-1784: the Ancien Régime of a more feudal France, although under attack from the growing class of the bourgeoise and the more scientific ideas of the enlightenment, was still a relatively stable period: the French revolution was just around the corner (starting in 1789). Darnton claims that in some respects the documents chosen reveal an alien mentality, that goes beyond our understanding. As modern readers we need to know the context surrounding the documents and the culture of the times, otherwise we may falsely interpret them and get a twisted view of their meaning. The documents chosen are not necessarily controversial, but Darnton is able to use them to make his points, which he does in an entertaining and informative way. Many of us with modern views on animal welfare; and pet lovers to boot, would be horrified by his second essay: titled The Great Cat Massacre, depicting a ritual slaughter of cats, which of course is exactly the point.
The first essay “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose” compares various folk tales, but here Darnton already finds himself on somewhat dodgy ground, because many of these tales were not written down until much later than when they were in circulation. However by comparing the same tale from different country’s allows the cultural historian to sift out qualities that make them peculiarly French. He is on more solid ground with Workers Revolt: ‘The Great Cat Massacre of Saint-Séverin.’ This is from a document that tells the story of Nicholas Contat a printers apprentice working in appalling conditions in Paris during late 1730’s. The ritualistic killing of cats, by particularly cruel methods was something that happened fairly regularly in many layers of society, but this is not the point of this story for an Eighteenth century French person, who would be much more concerned with a workers revolt. In a ‘Bourgeoise puts his World in Order; The City as Text,’ Darnton takes a description of Montpellier (a large town in South West France) and teases from it those points that make it curious for modern readers. ‘A Police Inspector Sorts His Files’ is an essay about a dossier left by a police inspector, whose job seemed to be to keep records of all known authors/playwrights/pamphleteers during a five year period starting from 1748. What makes the dossier particularly interesting is the police Inspectors personal comments on the authors he was ‘spying on”. The final two essays bring us to the period of the enlightenment. The first of these concerns the new ideas that can be gleaned from a study of Diderot’s Encyclopedie, however It is the second essay ‘Reader respond to Rousseau’ that provides a suitable climax to the book. From a collection of letters written by Jean Ransom: a fan of Jean-Jaques Rousseau he examines a readers response to the celebrated author. Rousseau himself was conscious of how readers should respond to his writing and so he gave them advice on how they should read his work. He wanted to be seen as some sort of divine prophet on the one hand and yet wanted readers also to suspend belief on the other. This essay also provides an insight into early fan worship.
Darnton’s book was published over forty years ago at a time when cultural history was making something of a breakthrough and is now considered an exemplar of the genre. It has as much to say about how we read as it does cultural history and because it is so well written it will be of interest to anyone who reads books for pleasure and/or for information. Valuable lessons perhaps for modern readers, when reading books from an ‘alien culture’; for example those of us who dip into science fiction of the 1950’s and struggle to get past some of the sexism and racism that can be inherent in the genre: an alien culture and it is only 60 years ago. Darnton’s conclusion raises as many questions as possible answers provided when he examines his own methods: our conception of times past is ever changing, but perhaps the cultural historian is better placed with his ability to follow his nose and trust to his sense of smell. You don’t need to know anything about French history to appreciate the ideas thrown up by these essays, you just need to enjoy reading. Great stuff and five stars. show less
A vivid, engaging look at 18th century France. Most of the chapters illuminate the lives of people who live in a particular social stratum. The one chapter where Darnton stumbles a bit is the one on Jean le Rond d'Alembert's introduction to the Encyclopédie, which seems more interested in the interplay between French Enlightenment philosophy and its predecessors. But the chapters on the French version of Little Red Riding Hood (and Darnton wryly pointing out you don't need to rely on show more Freudian symbolism to impute sexuality in the tale, it is blatant in the gruesome original), the titular cat massacre, the policeman's files on writers, and an aristocrat's fan letters to Rousseau are fun to read. show less
Robert Darnton's latest book is Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Harvard University Press, 2010). It is classic Darnton: having found an intriguing episode in the archives, he follows the trail wherever it may lead. In this case he came upon a series of dossiers in the French police archives pertaining to "l'affaire des Quatorze," ("Affair of the Fourteen") a 1749 dragnet which resulted in the arrests of fourteen men (mostly priests, students, and show more clerks) for disseminating six salacious poems about Louis XV, his government, and his unpopular mistress, Madame de Pompadour.
Throughout the book, Darnton allows us to peer inside his research methods and puts into writing the questions he asked himself as he carried out his own investigations into the police's dogged pursuit of those circulating the scandalous verses. By attempting to "reconstruct orality," (which he calls the "the most important missing element" in the history of communication - p. 2), Darnton suggests that we can (to the extent possible) "uncover a complex communication network and study the way information circulated in a semiliterate society" (p. 3).
In this slim volume (just 145 pages of text, followed by much end-matter, discussed below) Darnton offers up not only an account of the Affair of the Fourteen (how it proceeded and how it turned out), but also (widening the scope) contextual chapters on the political and social climate in France that led to the poems' production and spread, fascinating capsule-treatments of musical culture in eighteenth-century Paris (most notably the "street-singing") and how new lyrics laid atop old tunes (I love his phrase "aural palimpsest" for this) made the rapid infiltration of the poems and songs possible.
Darnton also admits the difficulties with the type of work he's trying to do with this book, noting that determining the actual public perceptions and impact of these verses in their own time is inherently tricky, since the much the evidence historians would want to be able to make a strong argument about the importance of this affair is simply lost to us. And he points out the dangers in reading proto-Revolutionary sentiments into these verses; while they do poke fun at (or even encourage the assassination of) the royal family, they should be seen "not as a symptom of things to come but rather as one of those rare incidents that, if adequately examined, reveal the underlying determinants of events" (p. 140).
I've heard Darnton speak several times about his desire to see historical works "enhanced" by supporting documentation and other materials, and he has certainly followed his own advice in this work. By supplementing the text with the texts of the poems which led to the Affair of the Fourteen, short contextual essays on various aspects of the book, and by an electronic caberet which features recordings of several of the tunes referred to in the text, Darnton has provided a fine example usefulness of enhanced texts (provided, of course, that the publisher maintains the website, &c.).
As usual, Darnton has found a good story, and told it well. By pulling at the loose threads of this seemingly unimportant episode, Darnton "reveals the way an information society operated when information spread by word of mouth and poetry carried messages among ordinary people, very effectively and long before the Internet" (p. 145).
http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/12/book-review-poetry-and-police.html show less
Throughout the book, Darnton allows us to peer inside his research methods and puts into writing the questions he asked himself as he carried out his own investigations into the police's dogged pursuit of those circulating the scandalous verses. By attempting to "reconstruct orality," (which he calls the "the most important missing element" in the history of communication - p. 2), Darnton suggests that we can (to the extent possible) "uncover a complex communication network and study the way information circulated in a semiliterate society" (p. 3).
In this slim volume (just 145 pages of text, followed by much end-matter, discussed below) Darnton offers up not only an account of the Affair of the Fourteen (how it proceeded and how it turned out), but also (widening the scope) contextual chapters on the political and social climate in France that led to the poems' production and spread, fascinating capsule-treatments of musical culture in eighteenth-century Paris (most notably the "street-singing") and how new lyrics laid atop old tunes (I love his phrase "aural palimpsest" for this) made the rapid infiltration of the poems and songs possible.
Darnton also admits the difficulties with the type of work he's trying to do with this book, noting that determining the actual public perceptions and impact of these verses in their own time is inherently tricky, since the much the evidence historians would want to be able to make a strong argument about the importance of this affair is simply lost to us. And he points out the dangers in reading proto-Revolutionary sentiments into these verses; while they do poke fun at (or even encourage the assassination of) the royal family, they should be seen "not as a symptom of things to come but rather as one of those rare incidents that, if adequately examined, reveal the underlying determinants of events" (p. 140).
I've heard Darnton speak several times about his desire to see historical works "enhanced" by supporting documentation and other materials, and he has certainly followed his own advice in this work. By supplementing the text with the texts of the poems which led to the Affair of the Fourteen, short contextual essays on various aspects of the book, and by an electronic caberet which features recordings of several of the tunes referred to in the text, Darnton has provided a fine example usefulness of enhanced texts (provided, of course, that the publisher maintains the website, &c.).
As usual, Darnton has found a good story, and told it well. By pulling at the loose threads of this seemingly unimportant episode, Darnton "reveals the way an information society operated when information spread by word of mouth and poetry carried messages among ordinary people, very effectively and long before the Internet" (p. 145).
http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/12/book-review-poetry-and-police.html show less
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