Description
Book SynopsisThough the field of book history has long been divided into discrete national histories, books have seldom been as respectful of national borders as the historians who study them—least of all in the age of Enlightenment when French books reached readers throughout Europe. In this erudite and engagingly written study, Jeffrey Freedman examines one of the most important axes of the transnational book trade in Enlightenment Europe: the circulation of French books between France and the German-speaking lands. Focusing on the critical role of book dealers as cultural intermediaries, he follows French books through each stage of their journey—from the French-language printing shops where they were produced, to the wholesale book fairs in Leipzig, to retail book shops at locations scattered widely throughout Germany. At some of those locations, authorities reacted with alarm to the spread of French books, burning works of the radical French Enlightenment and punishing the books
Trade Review
"Carefully reasoned and deeply researched . . . a welcome addition to the study of the myriad ways in which ideas have been carried in print across political, linguistic, and other barriers" * TLS *
"An outstanding, vivid, fine-grained, minutely researched, and highly readable study that makes an indispensable contribution to our knowledge of the diffusion of the Enlightenment." * French Studies *
"Anyone with any knowledge about eighteenth-century literary and cultural history will recognize the importance of this book. A study of this sort has long been needed not simply to extend our understanding of the French book in Germany but also to counterbalance and revise various national 'history of the book' series which focus on the national unit and precisely miss the importance of books as livres sans frontières." * James Raven, University of Essex *
Table of Contents
Note on Terminology and Sources
Introduction
Chapter 1. Rite of Spring: The Leipzig Easter Fair and the Literary Marketplace
Chapter 2. Whom to Trust? Insolvent Booksellers and the Problem of Credit
Chapter 3. French Booksellers in the Reich
Chapter 4. Demand
Chapter 5. The Word of God in the Age of the Encyclopédie
Chapter 6. Against the Current: Translating the Aufklärung
Chapter 7. From Europe Française to Europe Révolutionnaire: The Career of Jean-Guillaume Virchaux
Conclusion. What Were French Books Good For?
Appendix A. STN Trade with Booksellers in Germany, 1770-
Appendix B. The Folio Bible of 1773: Diffusion
Appendix C. The Folio Bible of 1779: Prepublication Subscriptions
Appendix D. The Bible in Germany: The Neuchâtel Folio of 1779 and the Bienne Octavo
Appendix E. Diffusion of Sebaldus Nothanker in French Translation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
