The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History

Author of The Great Cat Massacre plus several other texts, Robert Darnton is a cultural historian, professor, and librarian originally from New York City. Darnton studied at Harvard University and was later awarded a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University, where he earned a PhD in history. His doctoral thesis explored trends in propaganda prior to the French Revolution. His career has largely focused on 18th-century French society, though he helped pioneer the study of the history of books and is a noted advocate of electronic publishing.

Darnton has won numerous awards in his career, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, earned for The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, published in 1996. For his extensive work examining French history, the French government honored Darnton as a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 2005. President Barack Obama awarded Darnton with the National Humanities Medal in 2011, for his efforts in making knowledge accessible to all.

An apprentice at Jacques Vincent’s printing shop on Rue Saint-Séverin, Nicholas Contat was one of the key instigators of the great cat massacre. Fed spoiled cat foot and forced to sleep in a filthy room surrounded by the incessant caterwauling of stray