If Charles Theveneau de Morande was a character in a novel, he would be considered the ultimate anti-hero. He has variously been described as 'the incarnation of an eighteenth-century rogue', 'a minor prince among blackmailers', and 'a man so cunning that he outwitted Figaro himself.' Morande (1741-1805) was notorious among his contemporaries for successfully blackmailing Louis XV and his mistress Madame Du Barry, and inspiring a veritable extortion industry to develop in London. To historians he is even better known as and archetypical 'Grub Street' hack and the author of the Gazetier cuirasse. However, Morande's historical significance far transcends his success as a blackmailer and scandalous pamphleteer. For, having extorted the monarchy, he turned coat and during the War of American Independence and throughout the 1780s was France's leading political spy in London. In addition, he was a highly successful police agent among his fellow exiles and one of the most influential journalists of his time. Morande's life story is a tale of intrigue, blackmail, espionage, duels, kidnap, murder, politics, conspiracy and crime. At the same time, it offers a chance to examine some of the most important issues of French history and revolution.

Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image makers, cultural theorists and those concerned with manifestations of the extraordinary. D'Eon's significance as a historical figure was already being debated more than 45 years before his death.

Not surprisingly, such sensational material has attracted the attention of enthusiasts, scholars and literateurs to 'the strange case of the chevalier d'Eon'. He has also attracted the attention of psychologists and sexologists, and for most of the last century his gender transformation has been viewed through a Freudian lens. His cross-dressing, it was usually assumed, must have a psychosexual explanation. Until the second half of the twentieth century the terms 'Eonist' and 'Eonism' were the standard English words for transvestites and transvestism respectively, but 'Eonism' was also, thanks to Havelock Ellis, widely regarded as a psychological condition or compulsion. However, in the mid-twentieth century, new ideas about gender-identity disorders led to d'Eon being redefined not as a transvestite, but a transsexual - a person who considers their sex to have been 'misassigned'.

The essays in this collection contribute to d'Eon's rehabilitation as a figure worthy of scholarly attention and display a variety of disciplinary approaches. Drawing on new research into d'Eon's life, this volume offers original and nuanced readings of how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.

In this book, leading historians of the French, Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Neapolitan revolutions bridge the gap between the historiographies of the so-called Sister Republics and explore political culture as a set of discourses or political practices. Parliamentary practices, the comparability of "universal" political concepts, late-eighteenth-century Republicanism, the relationship between press and politics, and the interaction between the Sister Republics and France are all examined from a comparative, transnational perspective.

In *Blackmail, scandal, and revolution*, Simon Burrows examines the activities, adventures, publications, and influence of the most venomous critics of the Bourbon monarchy - French exile libellistes who flocked to London to publish scandalous or sexually salacious pamphlets hoping to extort lavish suppression fees. Smut-mongering pamphleteers are prominent figures in the recent historiography of the French revolution. Many historians now contend that nihilistic, 'Grub Street' authors sapped the foundations of the monarchy with their 'desacralising' and frequently pornographic attacks on French monarchs and their consorts, above all Marie-Antoinette. Such arguments, it has been suggested, amount to a veritable 'pornographic interpretation' of the French revolution. Simon Burrows offers a comprehensive refutation of this interpretation and recontextualises 'Grub Street' pamphleteers within the political life of the ancien regime. In the course of his dissection of the libellistes' life histories, social networks, business activities, literary output, political affiliations, and blackmail negotiations, he demonstrates that political pornographic attacks on living monarchs or their consorts were almost unobtainable prior to 1789. He concludes that the libellistes' primary importance lies in their contribution to factional politics and in the public disquiet aroused by desperate and heavy-handed attempts to kidnap or silence them. With its revisionist interpretation of the pre-revolutionary public sphere, Blackmail, scandal, and revolution is essential reading for students of eighteenth-century political culture and the French revolution. However, its colourful and lively cast of perfidious spies, cynical ministers, royal mistresses, a tragic queen, conniving diplomats, and criminal rogues will also appeal to a wider audience.

This collection of essays covers a particularly turbulent and important period in European and American history. As a vital component of print and political culture, newspapers feature prominently in many accounts of social and political change between 1750 and 1850. Yet despite the influence attributed to the newspaper press (by historians and contemporaries), not enough is known about the press itself, particularly in terms of national comparison. This collection aims to fill this gap in our knowledge by examining the press of several European countries and of North America.

Newspapers are a vital component of print and political cultures, and as such they informed as well as documented the social and political upheavals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, despite the huge influence attributed to them by both contemporary observers and historians, our knowledge of the nature and function of the newspaper press itself remains scant. Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760-1820 aims to fill this gap by examining aspects of the press in several European countries and America, both individually and comparatively, during this particularly turbulent and important period. Contributors explore the relationship between newspapers and social change, specifically in the context of the part played by the press in the political upheavals of the time. The collection examines the relationship between newspapers and public opinion, and attempts to define their place in the emergence of a 'public sphere'.

This is a rich and path-breaking comparative study of reading tastes in the final years of old regime Europe. Based on extensive research in the account books of the Swiss publishers, the "Societe typographique de Neuchate"l, and related archives, it charts the dissemination of literature and reading tastes across Europe in the years leading up to the French revolution. In the process, it recasts our understanding of late 18th-century print culture and the contours of the enlightenment. The fruit of a widely acclaimed five year database project, the STN database, it is also a story of pioneering efforts to apply the latest digital technology and GIS mapping techniques to traditional historical and bibliographic problems.Although written to serve as a standalone study, this book is ideally complemented by its companion volume, Mark Curran's "The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe I: Selling Enlightenment," which offers a radical reinterpretation of the structure and practices of the European book trade.The STN database is now recognised as a cutting-edge digital project of global significance. Robert Darnton has called it "a prodigious accomplishment and a joy to use" while Jeremy Popkin adds, "No one working in the field of French Enlightenment studies ... can afford to ignore the rich mine of data that Simon Burrows and his collaborators have made accessible, in an eminently usable form, and the new possibilities it opens up for scholars." "The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe" I and II offer a roadmap of that data and what it can show us. ""

This is a rich and path-breaking comparative study of reading tastes in the final years of old regime Europe. Based on extensive research in the account books of the Swiss publishers, the Societe Typographique de Neuchatel (STN), and related archives, it charts the dissemination of literature and reading tastes across Europe in the years leading up to the French revolution. In the process, it recasts our understanding of late 18th-century print culture and the contours of the enlightenment. The fruit of a widely acclaimed five year database project, the STN database, it is also a story of pioneering efforts to apply the latest digital technology and GIS mapping techniques to traditional historical and bibliographic problems. Although written to serve as a standalone study, this book is ideally complemented by its companion volume, Mark Curran's The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe I: Selling Enlightenment, which offers a radical reinterpretation of the structure and practices of the European book trade. The STN database is now recognised as a cutting-edge digital project of global significance. Robert Darnton has called it "a prodigious accomplishment and a joy to use" while Jeremy Popkin adds, "No one working in the field of French Enlightenment studies ... can afford to ignore the rich mine of data that Simon Burrows and his collaborators have made accessible, in an eminently usable form, and the new possibilities it opens up for scholars." The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe I and II offer a roadmap of that data and what it can show us.

A unique perspective of the Luberon region of Provence, Provence. An indispensable information guide written by a local resident with beautiful photography by Lovonne Burrow. Formatted easily to accompany you on your travels.