French book trade in Enlightenment Europe - new scholarly database

Researchers at the University of Leeds' Centre for the Comparative History of Print (Centre CHoP) have recently released a database showing the dispersion of books published by the Société typographique de Neuchâtel between the years 1769-1794. The database allows scholars to chart the dissemination networks of the almost 4000 editions of 3600 titles published during these years by this important Enlightenment press, and to conduct advanced searches and analysis of individual titles or of books grouped by title, author, and geographic or subject categories.

Here is the project's press release and URL:

"Simon Burrows and Mark Curran are pleased to announce the on-line publication of the French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe database at:

http://chop.leeds.ac.uk/stn/

A major resource for bibliographical, historical and literary scholarship, it is now made freely available to academics and the wider public.

The database, funded by a £355,485 grant from the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, tracks the dissemination of over 400,000 copies of almost 4,000 editions of 3,600 works around Europe by a celebrated Swiss publisher-bookseller, the Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN), in the period 1769-1794.

The database allows users to explore the STN’s supply and distribution networks across time and space, on both a macro and a micro level. They can investigate the dissemination of single works or the trade of individual clients; the STN’s client networks; the distribution patterns for all works, or those by a particular author or on particular themes. Specialist tools allow for geographic mapping; the graphing of trends over time; or the creation of local and regional best-sellers tables. Advanced query options make it possible to make specialised searches by, among other things, legal or illegal sectors; gender or clients; or place of publication.

Using a state-of-the-art intuitive user interface, the database is also accompanied by written guides and instructional videos."

New Arrivals in French and Italian Studies, Spring 2012

A selection of books that have recently made their way to the library . . .

French Works

Bernardi, Bruno. Rousseau et la Révolution. [Paris]: Gallimard, 2012.

Crăiuțu, Aurelian. A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1830. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Dosse, Florence. Les héritiers du silence: enfants d'appelés en Algérie. [Paris]: Stock, 2012.

Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste. L'apocalypse joyeuse: une histoire du risque technologique. Paris: Seuil, 2012. 312p. 23.00E.

Hamza, Assiya. Mémoires d'enracinés: mes rencontres avec ces pieds-noirs qui ont choisi de rester en Algérie. Paris: Michalon, 2012.

Harismendy, Patrick, and Erwan Le Gall. Pour une histoire de la France Libre. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2012.

Hervé-Montel, Caroline. Renaissance littéraire & conscience nationale: les premiers romans en français au Liban et en Égypte, 1908-1933. Paris: Geuthner, 2012.

Juin, Claude. Des soldats tortionnaires: guerre d'Algérie, des jeunes gens ordinaires confrontés à l'intolérable. Paris: Laffont, 2012. 363p. 21.00E.

Knee, Philip. Rousseau et le romantisme. Montmorency: Société internationale des amis du Musée J.-J. Rousseau, 2011.

Martin, Jean-Pierre, and Claudine Nédélec. Traduire, trahir, travestir: études sur la réception de l'Antiquité. Arras: Artois Presses Université, 2012.

McPhee, Peter. Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

Melzer, Sara E. Colonizer or Colonized: The Hidden Stories of Early Modern French Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.

Pirotte, Jean-Claude. Ajoie: poésie. Paris: Table ronde, 2012.

Italian Works

Angelini, Margherita. Fare storia: culture e pratiche della ricerca in Italia da Gioacchino Volpe a Federico Chabod. Roma: Carocci, 2012.

Bigazzi, Isabella. Sfogliando la moda: riviste di moda e figurini teatrali. Firenze: Edifir, 2011.

Fasiolo, Francesco. Italia da fumetto: il graphic journalism e la narrativa disegnata che raccontano la realtà italiana di ieri e di oggi. Latina, Italy: Tunué, 2012.

Past, Elena. Methods of Murder: Beccarian Introspection and Lombrosian Vivisection in Italian Crime Fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Schoonover, Karl. Brutal Vision: The Neorealist Body in Postwar Italian Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Seccia, Giorgio. Il calcio in guerra: gioco di squadra e football nella Grande Guerra. Udine: Gaspari, 2011.

Tanzini, Lorenzo, and Sergio Tognetti. Mercatura è arte: uomini d'affari toscani in Europa e nel Mediterraneo tardomedievale. Roma: Viella, 2012.

Recently acquired rare and antiquarian materials

Exciting new additions to the Stanford rare books collection range from exposition albums to treatises on the dangers of venereal disease in French Indochina. We have also recently acquired a 1554 edition of Boccaccio’s Filocopo, one of the first compositions by this seminal author of the Italian Renaissance, as well as a 1737 edition of commemorative poems which includes a contribution by Laura Bassi, the first woman to be appointed lecturer at a European university (Bologna).

French Works

Coutances. Constitutions des religieuses hospitalières de Coutances. Coutances [Normandy], last quarter of the eighteenth century. Manuscript.

"This is a manuscript manual for the Augustinian sisters who were charged with care for the sick. It describes in detail the familiar spiritual necessities of prayer, poverty, humility, charity and chastity and has substantial sections on the sisters’ hospital duties. They were required to tend to the sick (taking account of both their spiritual and medical needs), to make simple records of the patients, to assist at mealtimes and prayers and to be diligent in summoning either doctor or surgeon, according to the patient’s need.  Attendance at the deathbed was also required. There are sections on daily prayers, meals, dress, relations with those outside the hospital, discipline and reading."

Du Deffand, Marie de Vichy Chamrond, Marquise. [Meeke, Mary, Translator]. The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Deffand, with d’Alembert, Montesquieu, the President Hénault, the Duchess du Maine, Mesdames de Staal, de Choiseul, the Marquis d’Argens, the Chevalier D’Aydie, .... : followed by the Letters of Voltaire to Madame du Deffand. Translated from the French by Mrs. Meeke. In Two Volumes. Vol. I [-II]. London: Printed at the Minerva Press, for A.K. Newman & Co., Leadenhall Street. 1810. Uncommon first English translation of this collection of unpublished correspondence of the French hostess and patron of the arts, Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand (1697-1780), together with historical details of her life.




Several pieces on France at Interational Expositions and fairs were acquired, including the following pamphlets on French Indochina from published for the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931.

• Indochine française. Section des services d'intérêt social. Direction générale de l'instruction publique. Le centre de formation professionnelle de Huê. Hanoi : Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient, 1931. 
• Gaide, Laurent Joseph. La prévention et le traitement de la lèpre en Indochine. Hanoi: Impr. d'Extrême-Orient, 1930. 
• Gaide, Laurent Joseph, and Paul Bernard Campunaud. Le péril vénérien en Indochine: Indochine française. Hanoï: Impr. d'Extrême-Orient, 1930. 
• Exposition coloniale. Indochine française. L'Inspection générale des mines et de l'industrie. Hanoï: Impr. d'Extrême-Orient, 1931. 

A. Carel. Les brasseries à femmes de Paris. ; illustrations d'après nature de Fernand Fau. Paris: E. Monnier, 1884. From the catalog description: "A flurry of women's brasseries opened following the Paris World Fair in 1867. First located in the Latin Quarter, the establishments hired young attractive women servers from various nations including France, Spain, and England. These brasseries à femmes, with more or less bizarre names . . . offered more than alcohol--they became centers for prostitution."


Livres de notice, des gages des domestique(s) et ouvrie(rs) de la bas cour 1691. Fine Manuscript in ink. France, n.p., ca. 1691-1704. From the catalog description: "An attractive manuscript listing the salaries paid for servants, domestic help and other workers at an unidentified French estate. . . . This annotated account book covers the period between 1691 and ca. 1704, and lists the payments to twenty-four employees, some identified by name, others by function."

Rey, J.-L. Des prostituées et de la prostitution en general, des moyens d’en atténuer les résultats… et de combattre l’invasion des maladies syphilitiques, suivi d’une notice sur les règlements de police concernant la prostitution. Le Mans, Julien, Lanier et Cie, 1847.
From the catalog description: "First edition of this study of prostitution by the Le Mans police commissioner J.-L. Rey. Rey’s concern is to mitigate the effects of prostitution, both among the women themselves, and among their clients; he aims both to improve moral education in an attempt to wean people off the practice, and, on a more practical level, proposes means of limiting the risk of syphilis and other diseases. In doing so, he examines the various types of prostitution, the routes by which people enter into it, the registration of prostitutes with the police, and the specifics facts of prostitution in Le Mans. An appendix contains the police regulations for managing and dealing with prostitution."

Robida, Albert. Voyage de fiançailles au xxe siècle... Paris: Librairie L. Conquet, 1892. 8vo (181 × 114 mm), pp. [iv], 83, [1], frontispiece, text illustrations, title in red and black. An illustrated futuristic voyage, set in 1954, with technology to match!

Italian Works

Componimenti poetici per il publico ingresso di sua eccellenza il signor cov. Fra Alessandro Conte Burri per la sacra ed eminentissima religione gerosolimitana ricevitore apresso la serenissima republica di Venezia. In Verona, Nella Stamperia Targa, MDCCXXXVII [1737].
"First edition of this collection of poems and songs written to commemorate the entry of Count Alessandro Burri into the present day Order of Malta, with contributions from Veronese members of the Accademia dell’Arcadia. Among the contributors are Laura Bassi, the physicist who was the first woman to teach in a European university, Gaetana Secchi Ronchi, and Francesca Ronchi." (from the dealer's catalog)

Boccaccio, Giovanni, Il filocopo. 1554. di nuovo riveduto, corretto ... alla sua vera lettione ridotto da M. Francesco Sansovino. Venezia, Francesco Rampazzetto. A rare edition of one of Boccaccio's masterpieces, in a textual revision by Sansovino.


Rinaldi, Cesare, Lettere di Cesare Rinaldi, il neghittoso academico spensierato, all'illustrissimo, et reverendiss. Sig. il Signor Cardinal d'Este, 1617. A rare collection of letters from a friend of Giambattista Marino.



The Italian pavilion: a century of progress, 1933. Italian State Tourist Bureau, 1933. A tourist program describing the Italian pavilion at the Century of Progress exposition, held in 1933-34 in Chicago. As the cover shows, this pamphlet showcases Mussolini's Italy and the glorifies his works.