about the movements of the sun and moon, timing of full tides and eclipses, and much else that was of importance in the everyday life of people Chapbook – A term used to describe pocket- size books that are sold by travelling pedlars called chapmen. These became popular from the time of the sixteenth-century print revolution Box In , a London publisher, James Lackington, wrote in his diary: ‘The sale of books in general has increased prodigiously within the last twenty years. The poorer sort of farmers and even the poor country people in general who before that period spent their winter evenings in relating stories of witches, ghosts, hobgoblins … now shorten the winter night by hearing their sons and daughters read them tales, romances, etc. If John goes to town with a load of hay, he is charged to be sure not to forget to bring home Peregrine Pickle’s Adventure … and when Dolly is sent to sell her eggs, she is commissioned to purchase The History of Joseph Andrews .’ .
‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!’ By the mid-eighteenth century, there was a common conviction that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment. Many believed that books could change the world, liberate society from despotism and tyranny, and herald a time when reason and intellect would rule. Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in eighteenth-century France, declared: ‘The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away.’ In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes are transformed by acts of reading. They devour books, are lost in the world books create, and become enlightened in the process.
Convinced of the power of print in bringing enlightenment and destroying the basis of despotism, Mercier proclaimed: ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!’ . Print Culture and the French Revolution Many historians have argued that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred. Can we make such a connection?
Three types of arguments have been usually put forward. First: print