471

to the king for support, giving the attempted suppression ofJansenism political
as well as religious implications. The local elites saw the Unigentius and the king's
support of the bull as threatening not only the long tradition of Gallicanism but
their own poiiticai and social importance. Widespread criticism of the crown
now joined criticism of the unpopular bull. According to Garrioch, these events
came to "mark a sea change in Parisian political life" (167).
As the eighteenth century progressed, other transformations contributed to
making revolutionary Paris. The spread of Enlightenment ideals through salons.
Freemasonry lodges, and scientific academies democratized educated society:
deference, the hallmark of traditional society, was on the wane. Urban and po-
lice reforms further eroded the traditional social structure of the city. Improved
traffic patterns made it easier for people to move beyond their neighborhoods,
broadening their social interactions and interests. Residents increasingly turned
to royal officials to resolve local problems and conflicts. This, in turn, served to
undermine the influence of the local elite: "Public health, fire prevention, street
maintenance, law and order, and taxation had all been transferred to the police
or to other authorities" (255). By the time of the Rveillon riot in 1789, a protest
had the potential of becoming something more than simply a local complaint
about the perceived unjust pricing of bread. It could become a social and politi-
cal protest that attracted the support of people from across the city and required
royal troops to suppress.
While some of the factors Garrioch attributes to the transformation of eigh-
teenth-century Paris (such as the urban renovation and the relocation of cem-
eteries) seem somewhat tangential to his arguments, his overall analysis is solid
and his case arguing the importance of Jansenism is convincing. Add to this
Garrioch's ability to enliven his analysis with the vividly portrayed lives of rela-
tive unknowns who illustrate key points of his arguments, and the result is a text
that is at once scholarly and a vivid, highly readable work. The Making ofRevolu-
tionary Paris proves itself to be equally accessible to historians and the general
reading public.

Wayne Hanley, West Chester University, Pennsylvania

La figure du bibliomane: Histoire du livre et stratgie littraire au XIXe sicle. By Daniel

Desormeaux. Saint-Genouph, France: Librairie Nizet, 2001. 251 pp. 22,87 ISBN
2-7078-1254-4.

The two sections of Daniel Desormeaux's Lafiguredu bibliomane could very

well have been separate books. The first part, "Les marginalits du bibliomane"
(The Marginality of the Bibliomaniac) (19-79) is a fairly straightforward history
of bibliomania and its social significance in France from the Middle Ages to the
Bourbon Restoration. The second part, "Le bibliomanie et ses institutions" (Bib-
liomania and Its Institutions) (83-244) focuses instead on a critical analysis of
five nineteenth-century authors whose literary works were influenced by the
principles of bibliomania.
In the historical section the author recounts that the bibliomaniac makes his
first appearance in Sebastian Brant's Ship ofFools (1494), where the bibliomaniac
is the first to enter the vessel. (A woodcut of this fool from a 1497 edition appears
on the cover of the book.) He is a fool because he values books as physical
472 LSLC/Book Reviews

objects rather than for the knowledge they contain, a theme that continues to
this day, when the most valuable book is often the one in pristine condition that
has never been read.
In seventeenth-century France cultural power supported political power such
that the nobles owned handsome book collections that were acquired and main-
tained by others. The emerging middle class then mimicked the upper classes in
collecting books as a sign of social status, though the books seldom were consid-
ered differently from other collectible curiosities. In his plays Molire satirizes both
the uneducated bourgeois who doesn't understand learning at all and the pedant
who believes incorrecUy that book learning leads to social and political power.
Desormeaux begins his chapter on eighteenth-century France by examining
the definition of bibliomania in the multiplicity of dictionaries that appeared dur-
ing this century. In the eighteenth century the distinction between the "bibliophile,"
who loves books for the knowledge they contain, and the "bibliomane," who val-
ues them for their rarity and physical attractiveness, begins to be made. The Ency-
clopedists attacked bibliomania for encouraging the publication of rare books that
were too expensive to be read widely. Even more profoundly, the Encyclopedists
did not believe that all books were equal but rather that the reader should system-
atically acquire knowledge not from random reading but from carefully distilled
compendia, including the Encyclopedia itself
The French Revolution had a profound effect upon bibliomania, as suddenly
the great book collections of the nobles and the Church became the property of
the government. Desormeaux underscores the tension on the part of the revolu-
tionaries between destroying books as a symbol of the monarchy and preserving
them as part of France's cultural heritage. This chapter is especially fascinating
in its recounting of the efforts of Abb Grgoire to preserve as many books as
possible by emphasizing the need to save France's treasures and to keep them
out of the hands of the English, who sought to buy them cheaply.
The second part of the book begins with a transition chapter that shows how
bibliomania became socially acceptable in the early nineteenth century. The
Socit des bibliophiles was founded in 1820, with many other similar organiza-
tions to follow. Publishers and authors began to create instant rarities, with lim-
ited editions available only to the select few. An effort was made to republish
scarce items that existed in unique or limited copies after the destruction of the
Revolution. As the century progressed, the rare book market developed, with
price lists and opinions about which contemporary authors were worth collect-
ing. In addition, the chapter serves as a transition between history and literary
criticism by showing how Charles Nodier both influenced book collecting and
presented an accurate portrayal of a fictional bibliomaniac.
Since literary criticism is not the focus of this journal, I will give a brief sum-
mary of how bibliomania influenced the five authors treated by Desormeaux in
the second part of his book, except for Anatole France, who speaks to library
issues. Furthermore, in this section and in his conclusion, the author moves away
from historical facts to discuss the philosophical meanings of publication, com-
munication, and collecting. Thus, he has chosen five authors who in different
ways reject a simplistic model of book publishing.
Gustave Flaubert, besides having written a short story about a bibliomaniac,
cannot let go of his manuscripts and must continually rework them. His manu-
scripts become a "fetish" that he does not want to give to the public. Stendhal
bequeaths his manuscripts to others to publish after his death. He also creates, in
essence, new manuscripts from his published work by adding elaborate
 473

notations for subsequent editions that most often never appear. Nerval, in Les
faux saulniers, turns the bibliomaniacal quest for a unique book, seen but not
bought, into the story itself. Barbey d'Aurevilly creates instant rarities by pub-
lishing his works in limited luxurious editions that he then gives to the "happy
few" who are able to appreciate them. Thus, as a dandy, he assures that his
writing is not soiled by contact with the general public.
I find it more difficult to summarize Desormeaux's treatment of his last writer,
Anatole France. He possesses many anbibliomaniac traits such as publishing widely,
not caring about the preservation of his manuscripts, and setting his bookseller
father apart from his bibliomaniacal colleagues. If France is a bibliomaniac, so too
are many of the readers of this review, because one of France's principal
bibliomaniacal elements is his desire to list and catalog books. France also fre-
quently portrays characters who never get around to writing their masterpieces
because they are too involved in accumulating research materials. Finally,
Desormeaux quotes France's perceptive prediction about the unfortunate future
consequences of information overload: "Si la bibliothque nationale continue
s'enrichir de toutes les productions nouvelles, dans cents ans, elle sera absolument
impraticable, et sarichessemme l'annulera" [If the national library continues to
enrich its collections with all new publications, in 100 years it will become abso-
lutely unusable, and the richness itself of its holdings will destroy it] (212).
In summary, I can understand why the author made the decision to append a
history of bibliomania to the literary criticism that is the main focus of this work.
Without the introduction, most readers would not bring sufficient knowledge of
bibliomania to comprehend his points. I would nonetheless counter that the
concept of bibliomania is not crucial to his literary criticism except that it pro-
vides a unifying factor for including the five authors in the same work. A second
possibility would have been to have paid more attention to the details of book
collecting and publishing in the nineteenth century within his literary criticism.
He could have perhaps included a background historical section before each of
thefivewriters to provide context, since French publishing and collecting changed
considerably between Flaubert and France. As it stands, combining these two
disparate elements leads to a marriage that is not made in heaven.

Robert P. Holley, Wayne State University, Detroit

A History of the Farmington Plan. By Ralph D. Wagner. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow

Press, 2002. 454 pp. $69.50. ISBN 0-8108-4359-9.

Ralph D. Wagner's History of the Farmington Plan chronicles the program from
its inception in the 1940s to its demise in the early 1970s. While die focus is on
the Farmington Plan, the book also gives a fair amount of consideration to the
history of the National Library Collection (1876-1942), early cooperatives and
acquisition programs, the National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging
(NPAC), and Public Law 83-480 (PL-480), as well as strategic plans for country
and subject responsibilities.
After the prologue, chapters 2 through 4 oudine the history of the National
Library Collection. Chapters 5 and 6 are dedicated to the war environment and
the first Farmington meeting in 1942. Wagner writes that on 9 October 1942 an
advisory board appointed by the Library of Congress (LC) met in Farmington,
Copyright of Libraries & Culture is the property of University of Texas Press and its content may not be copied
or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.