<span><span><span style="font-style:italic;">Bad Books</span><span> reconstructs how the eighteenth-century French author Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne and his writings were at the forefront of the development of modern conceptions of sexuality and pornography. The book corroborates the recent resurgence of interest in the author by showing the cultural import of his texts, which also illuminate some of the defining moments in the history of French literary studies. </span></span><br /><span><span> </span></span><br /></span>