Libertines and the Law

An important contribution to scholarly efforts to give intellectual, literary, but also social substance to seventeenth-century libertinage. [...] Horsley's book constitutes a thorough investigation into the reading records created by trials involving men of letters, but it also explores the ways in which the latter consolidated a reality that they helped to write. * Laurence Giavarini, French Studies * Horsley's meticulous archival study and expert analysis of legal arguments and practices reveals with extraordinary acuity how this society sought to define freedom of thought and action, whether in political and religious matters or in social conduct, and how to repress it * The Literary Encyclopedia * Adam Horsley's remarkable book brings seventeenth-century criminal archives into the realm of literary analysis. * Tom Hamilton, The Seventeenth Century * A rigorous and critical re-evaluation of some crucial issues in seventeenth-century literature and culture that opens the way for future research to bridge the gap between law and literature * Tom Hamilton, The Seventeenth Century * A highly impressive book...covering the fields of literary studies, criminology, and political and religious history, displaying extraordinary new research and discoveries of previously unknown and unstudied manuscripts. The breadth, scholarship and creativity of Libertines and the Law make it essential reading for students of early modern French law and literature. * Nicolas Hammond, Law & Literature *