Panorama of Paris: Selections from "Tableau de Paris"

by Jeremy D. Popkin and Louis-Sébastien Mercier

Book Overview

Panorama of Paris offers English-language readers an introduction to one of the forgotten masterpieces of French literature, Louis-S bastien Mercier's twelve-volume Le Tableau de Paris (published from 1781 to 1788), an important and original work that helped shape many kinds of French writing. Colorfully written, the text provides a fascinating portrait of everyday life in Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, describing the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 027101931X
• ISBN13: 9780271019314
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Finally, Mercier's Le Tableau de Paris

Mercier's Le Tableau de Paris is a classic that is very difficult to find in English. There are, I think, 12 volumes in the original, so I wouldn't expect all of it to be available right now. It's the first of its kind, a sociological study of a large city, Paris and its life and inhabitants, and it dates from just before the 1789 Revolution. This kind of study was later attempted by other writers, but Mercier remains the first and the best. It should be of interest to all social historians and sociologists.