Literary sociability and literary property in France, 1775-1793: Beaumarchais, the Societe des auteurs dramatiques and the Comedie Francaise - v. 33

The first full-length, scholarly study of the Soci?t? des auteurs dramatiques (SAD), this book describes the form, the meaning, the achievements, and the failures of the first professional association for creative writers in European history.

Founded by the well-known playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais in 1777 under the protection of prominent aristocrats at the court of King Louis XVI, the SAD comprised the playwrights most closely associated with the royal theater of the kingdom, the Com?die Fran?aise.

Its two dozen members discussed and worked to advance both their collective interests under the royal theater regulations (which governed such issues of literary property, creative control, and remuneration) and to promote their public image as playwrights and men of letters more broadly ? while at the same time competing with each other, sometimes intensely, for control over that image.