Rare Books Exhibition

Censors and Censorship in Enlightenment France

September - November 1996 

The current exhibition in the Rare Books exhibition area on the first floor of the ISB shows material from our strong holdings in 18th century French books. The theme is censorship during the Enlightenment period.

The immediate occasion for this exhibition was the purchase of a collection of decrees and edicts banning various books published in the "Ancient Regime". Many of the authors who suffered at the hands of the censors were the most prominent writers of the period, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and Helvetius. The main work, usually seen as a symbol of the Enlightenment, was the 17 volume, Encyclopedie. We hold a set of the first edition. On the flyleaves, and sometimes on the title page, we find a label pasted which reads, "Ouvrage defendu", or, "banned book".

The censors were mainly concerned at the threat of subversion to the state, or of blasphemy or unorthodoxy to the Church. For example, with the Encyclopedie, there is in volume 1 a "Table of Human Knowledge" which brackets religion with superstition. To the rationalists of the Enlightenment this was simply a statement of fact, but of course the Church felt that such an attitude, if widely promulgated, would undermine people's faith.

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>> Exhibition catalogues are available, free of charge, from the Rare Books information desk or via email

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