Popular serial fiction in 1840s Paris blended vague humanitarian and democratic ideas.

Evidence

Eugene Sue (1804-57) was the author of a series of extremely popular novels of Paris life published by instalments in the 1840s and 1850s, e.g. Les Mysteres de Paris (1842-43), Le Juif Errant (1844 45), Les Sept Peches Capitaux (1847 49), Les Mysteres du Peuple (1849 57). Set in a popular milieu, they contained a mish-mash of vaguely humanitarian and democratic ideas. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1891

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the historical figure of Eugene Sue and what his popular novels were — needed context for the Gramsci passage that follows.