Pierre Marteau
The fictitious imprint 'Pierre Marteau of Cologne' under which printers across Europe issued banned and scandalous books for two centuries.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- Date not recorded
- Form
- Other works
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Unrecorded
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
Pierre Marteau was not a person but a shield: a made-up publisher whose Cologne imprint appeared on French political libels, Protestant tracts, erotica, and pirated editions from the 1660s onward, printed in reality in Amsterdam, Brussels, and elsewhere. The false imprint protected printer and author alike from censors, and the name became a running joke of the clandestine book trade, used long after everyone knew it was fiction. The catalog of 'Marteau' is thus a whole library of works whose true origins were deliberately erased, collective anonymity operating at industrial scale.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote Pierre Marteau?
Nobody knows. No author for Pierre Marteau has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read Pierre Marteau for free?
Yes. Pierre Marteau is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at the Internet Archive.
Related works
- Still unknown
Amduat
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- Still unknown
Book of Caverns
An ancient Egyptian netherworld book depicting the sun god's passage over six caverns of the underworld. No author is recorded in the tradition.
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Book of the Dead
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- Still unknown
Book of the Earth
An ancient Egyptian funerary composition showing the sun's night journey through the earth god Aker. Anonymous, like all Egyptian netherworld books.