Author: SCHOELCHER, Victor.
Title: Le Deux Decembre - Les massacres dans Paris. [with] Le Crime de Decembre en Province.
Description: Paris, Bibliotheque Democratique 1872 & n.d. 16mo, Together in cloth backed mottled boards (boards rubbed and worn at corners). A bit of spotting in the first work, even natural browning in the second. ¶ Schoelcher was a life long do-gooder, starting with the abolition of slavery in 1848. He is said to be one of two assembly members on the barricades during Bonaparte's 1851 coup and wrote his histories of the Decembre crimes from exile. Given the size of those books, the speed with which they were published and the sheer mass of names and dates I can only guess that he went into some eidetic trance and dictated non-stop everything he saw and heard while a team of stenographers scribbled furiously.In the wake of 1871 Victor Poupin's Bibliotheque Democratique has, with Schoelcher's blessing, published these extracts in a cheap popular form. The history of these little books is confused with varied claims about their originality and first appearance which aren't right.Meanwhile Schoelcher carried on as a left wing senator, working for women's rights and the abolition of capital punishment.

Keywords: social science political economy utopian socialism reform c19th France