The Sociology of The Book Trade
Robert Escarpit was Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bordeaux and founder of the Centre for the Sociology of Literary Facts. His works included The Sociology of Literature, published in French in 1958 and in English translation in 1971, and The Book Revolution, published in French in 1965 and in English in 1966. In Durkheimian fashion, Escarpit aimed to concern himself only with the externally-defined 'social facts' of literature, especially those registered in the book trade. His focus fell on the 'community of writers', understood in aggregate as 'generations' and 'teams'. He extended the definition of literature to include all 'non-functional' writing and also insisted that literary success resulted from 'a convergence of intentions between author and reader'.
Analogously empirical studies of the sociology of the book trade were carried out by Lewis Coser in the United States and Peter H. Mann in Britain.
Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin's L'Apparition du livre, first published in French 1958 and in English translation as The Coming of the Book in 1976, is strictly speaking a work of social history (Febvre was a leading figure in the Annales School of historiography). But it is deeply sociological in character - Annales history was determinedly social scientific - and provides a systematic account of the long-run development of the European book trade (the period covered is 1450-1800).
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