Not only bad people end up in hell, but also bad books. At least, that was the case in France for a long time: „Enfer“, hell, is the name of a remota collection of the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, BNF), i.e. a collection of books that are not accessible to the public. Often they had been banned by the state censors.

Many large libraries have such collections that are not accessible – without readily admitting it. The American Library of Congress gathers banned books under the Greek letter Delta „Δ“, the British Library under „Private Case.“ When Peter Fryer made the British collection public in 1966, his book „Private Case, Public Scandal“ was banned in morally strict Australia… There, in turn, Nicole Moore succeeded only in 2005 in finding the secret collection of the Australian customs censorship in the National Archives of Australia (which she estimates at 12,000 books) – she reports on it in her exciting book „The Censor’s Library“ (2012). The largest of these secret collections, comprising over one million titles, is the „Spetskhran“ collection of the former USSR.

All these collections are still not „open access“ today. The formerly banned books remain difficult to access, but now partly for other, namely conservational reasons.

The French „Enfer“ was established between 1836 and 1844. Today it contains about 2,600 volumes according to the BNF catalog. These are ‘offensive’ books, especially predominantly erotic and pornographic works that were considered dangerous. Relevant authors such as Pietro Aretino, Johannes van Meurs and John Cleland appear repeatedly, but above all, of course, French literary figures of the libertine Ancien Régime: the Marquis de Sade, Rétif de la Bretonne or the Comte de Mirabeau. A few German, Italian, English, Latin, Russian works, some in translation, complete the predominantly French collection.

For whom were these „Enfer“ books actually dangerous? For the readers, their health, their salvation? Or rather for the rulers up there, who did not want to be questioned? It is noticeable that especially in the „Enfer“ books, the moral permissiveness is again and again connected with political positioning pro republicanism: Vive la Révolution! Many of the works were published in the 1790s and date their appearance according to the Revolutionary Census at „l’an 1,“ etc.

Today, the books of the “Enfer” are no longer banned – they have become an interesting object of research in cultural history (see Robert Darnton’s „The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France“, 1996). Standards of morality have changed. Pornographic and erotic texts, films, and games are freely available in most Western democracies, insofar as they do not threaten the safety of minors.

So what has ended up in French hell over time? There are two special catalogs on the „Enfer“ that provide information on this: „L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale“ (1913) by Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernand Fleuret and Louis Perceau and – updated and expanded –, „Les livres de l’Enfer. Bibliographie critique des ouvrages érotiques dans leurs différentes éditions du XVIe siècle à nos jours“ (1978) by Pascal Pias.

The older catalog of Apollinaire et al. has now been included in Die Kasseler Liste as an example (enter „Enfer“ or „Apollinaire“ at SOURCE). It gives us a snapshot of the books locked away in the French National Library before the First World War. 930 numbers are listed there – if we subtract the duplicates (identical editions of works), we are left with just over 600 volumes. Under these, there are also numerous duplicates of works, e.g. reprints. Far less than half of the 600 volumes can be attributed to (even presumed) authors.

Die Kasseler Liste, August 2023