Examples of clandestine literature include the
Samizdat literature of Soviet dissidents; the
Aljamiado literature of Spain; and the
nushu writing of some upper-class women in
Hunan, China, from around the 10th century to the 19th century. Clandestine publications were plentiful during the
Enlightenment era in 18th-century France, circulating as pamphlets or manuscripts, usually containing texts that would have been considered highly blasphemous by the
Ancien Régime, sometimes propounding outright atheism. These clandestine manuscripts particularly flourished in the 1720s, and contained such controversial works as
Treatise of the Three Impostors and the Catholic priest
Jean Meslier's atheistic
Memoirs. Both texts were later published in edited versions by
Voltaire, but handwritten manuscript copies have been found in private libraries all over Europe. The clandestine literature of 18th century France also consisted of printed works produced in neighbouring Switzerland or the Netherlands and smuggled into France. These books were usually termed "philosophical works", but varied greatly in content from pornography, utopian novels, political slander and actual philosophical works by radical enlightenment philosophers like
Baron d'Holbach,
Julien Offray de La Mettrie and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Another notable example of clandestine literature is
Bruce Bethke's short story "The Etymology of Cyberpunk" which spawned an entire
cyberpunk universe, proposing it as a label for a new generation of '
punk' teenagers inspired by the perceptions inherent to the
Information Age. ==Purpose and process==