A receipt for a subscription to Beaumarchais 60-volume 'Oevres Completes de Voltaire'
$3,250
Item #15691
More Literature Autographs
Click to close [X]
Click image to enlarge
BEAUMARCHAIS, PIERRE-AUGUSTIN CARON DE. (1732-1799). French writer whose plays include The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, set to music by Rossini and Mozart, respectively. DS. (“ Caron de Beaumarchais ”). 1p. Oblong 8vo. Paris, N.d. (1780-1782). To M. De france. In French. A partially printed receipt for a subscription to Beaumarchais’ 60-volume Oevres Complètes de Voltaire.
No 922 Oeuvres CompletteS DE M. DE VOLTAIRE, 60 vol. in-8o Nous reconnaissons que Mr. De france, au chateau de Longueval, près Albert, a souscrit sous le No neuf cent vingt deux. Pour un Exemplaire de l’Édition complette des Oeuvres de M. De Voltaire, in-8o, tirée à quatre mille, & numérotée depuis 1 jusqu’à 4000, imprimée avec les Caracteres de Baskerville, sur papier dit grand Missel fin, première qualité de France: sur quoi nous avons reçu la somme de soixante-douze livres, dont il lui sera tenu compte sur celle de trois cent soixante; prix du dit Exemplaire en feuilles. La présente reconnaissance servira pour son No. de Titre au partage des chances; dans la répartition gratuite de 200,000 livres tournois, conformément aux conditions énoncées dans le Prospectus. Plus, reçu 1/10me à compte de la La Société Litteraire Typographique. Reçu pour la Compagnie…
After the death of French writer and Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778), Beaumarchais committed himself to assembling and publishing the complete works of his mentor. “Beaumarchais thought himself obliged to collect, with scrupulous devotion, all that, during more than sixty years, had proceeded from the inexhaustible pan of Voltaire,” (Beaumarchais and His Times: Sketches of French Society in the Eighteenth Century, Loménie). Because Voltaire’s books were banned in France, Beaumarchais headquartered his venture, under the name La Société Litteraire Typographique, in Kehl, Germany. He bought the rights to Voltaire’s works from his publisher, sought out unpublished Voltaire manuscripts, bought the foundry where Baskerville typeface was produced as well as three paper mills. The venture was funded through subscriptions such as ours, sold from1780-1782, but wound up a financial failure. However, since its publication, Beaumarchais’ effort “has attracted a great deal of attention; see for instance Giles Barber’s ‘The Financial history of the Kehl Voltaire’ and the references he gives. The Kehl edition is so famous that no French book-collector’s library is complete without a set,” (Voltaire, Besterman). Although our receipt is for a 60-volume work, the final product actually stretched to 70 volumes, the last of which was published in 1790, according to Voltaire bibliographer Georges Bengesco.“Several thousand copies were printed, with the plates in various numbers and states, and of course in all sorts of bindings, from the original stitched paper, usually blue, to the most ornate contemporary morocco. Yet, and this is surely a great reproach to French erudition, the Kehl edition has never been adequately examined. Bengesco (number 2142; iv. 105-46) devoted forty-one pages to it, but without suspecting the bibliographical problems of a textual nature which fill it. There are all sorts of variants in the octavo edition, and for all I know in the duodecimo also (but I think not), that should be sorted out,” (ibid.). In addition to his important contribution to the stage and his preservation of Voltaire’s literary legacy, Beaumarchais made his mark on history by smuggling arms and supplies to the American revolutionaries and by spying on behalf of the French crown. An extremely rare document signed by this remarkable man documenting his monumental literary undertaking. Fine.
Item #15691
Price: $3,250