This book is a study of erotic literature in 18th-century France. Approaching the erotic book as a literary genre, Goulemot suggests that in early modern France it could be found alongside accepted forms of literary practice. Books containing rude language, of scenes of joyous fornication abounded, and were considered a recognized fact of cultural life. Goulemot argues that descriptions of sexual activity were the object of a healthy and well-established trade, and only became ousted from the marketplace with the arrival of a new, more codified elitist conception of art. It was at this point, under classicism, that a form of modern pornography - privately bought and secretly read - was born. Goulemot discusses the rules of production of erotic literature, its means of dissemination and modes of consumption, from the touting of prohibited books in the park of Versailles, to the uses of literature in waiting-rooms in brothels. He examines the various narrative techniques used in erotic books, as well as the images and illustrations they contained.