The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France
More popular than the canon of the great Enlightenment philosophers were other books, also banned by the regime, written and sold "under the  cloak."  These formed a libertine literature that was a crucial part of the culture of dissent in the Old Regime.  Robert Darnton explores the  cultural and political significance of these "bad" books and introduces  readers to three of the most influential illegal best-sellers, from which he includes substantial excerpts.  Winner of the1995 National Book Critics Circle Awardfor criticism.