Octave UZANNE
THE BOOK-HUNTER IN PARIS. Studies among the bookstalls ans the days by Octave Uzanne. With a Preface by Augustine Birrell. (illustrations par Emile Mas).
Elliot Stock, London, 1893
1 volume in-8 (23,5 x 17 cm) de XII-232-(3) pages. Nombreuses petites vignettes en noir dans le texte.
Reliure éditeur pleine toile marron avec vignette contrecollée sur le premier plat. Exemplaire très frais. Petite fente de la toile à l'extrémité du mors inférieur, coins légères marqués, bonnes coiffes, charnières intérieures fragiles. Papier vélin teinté.
FIRST PRINTING, FIRST EDITION.
Il s'agit du premier tirage pour l'Angleterre. Un tirage à 25 exemplaires seulement porte l'adresse de McClurg à Chicago. Tous les volumes sortent des presses de Londres. Il existe pour cette édition des cartonnages de couleur rouge, bleue, vert et marron (2 types référencés).
"These vocal days, when there are books about almost everything under the sun, no one need wond er that so quaint a fraternity as the stall-keepers on the quays of the Seine should have a volume all to themselves. They have a place in French history, these men; their trade, which by the beginning of the seventeenth century had learnt to cluster round the Pont Neuf, has traveled through vicissitudes peculiar to itself, and survived revolutions destructive of interests vaster than its own; these humble vendors of old books have been proclaimed as nuisances, obstructing the highway, denounced as receivers of stolen goods, and informed against as cheapeners of the well-housed stock of the authorized booksellers who kept shop, and paid rent, rates, and taxes. M. Uzanne makes us acquainted with the precise terms of royal edicts and decrees leveled at the heads of these open-air traders, who, however,as was indeed befitting, seem usually to have had friends at Court, who managed to prevent such an administration of the law as must have exterminated the whole tribe." ; Selected chapters: The Stall-keepers of To-day. Characters and oddities -- No prevalent type - The shoeblack as bookseller - Chevalier -- Corroenne -- Vaisset -- Gallandre -- Rigault and the Revue des Buloz -- Antoine Laporte -- Humel -- Jacques -- Chanmoru -- His projects for the reform cf the bookstalls--His notices to customers and others--A reminiscence of the siege of Paris--Jean Frollo on Chanmoru--A new way of beginning -- A find and a bargain--Schanne on another new departure -- Ferroud -- Rosselin -- The dealer in spectacles -- Tisserand -- Book-hunters and Book-huntresses. Characters and faces -- The chase is the image of war -- The passion in different forms -- Delights of book-hunting -- -The scarcity of bargains, and the reason why - - The art of dressing a stall -- Certain books for certain classes -- The book-huntress -- -Learned ladies -- The student -- Gausseron's experience -- The woman of fashion never goes book-hunting -- The priests -- The casuals -- The wealthy collecto r -- Hunting by catalogue -- Amddde Pommier -- Some noted book-lovers -- Hippolyte Rigault on the love of books -- Bibliophile Jacob as described by Du Seigneur -- His store-room -- Pere Rembrandt -- Fillet's enormous library -- Boulard's 300,00 0 books -- General Pittid -- Chantelauze -- Champfleury -- Feuillet de Conches -- Michel Chasles -- Captier -- Xavier Marmier -- His will -- Anatole France -- Fontaine -- Comte de Toustain -- Mouton- Duvernet -- Delzant and his books on happ iness -- Du Desert -- Making up sets -- Droz and the Templars -- Humbert -- Huysmans -- A batch of book-hunters -- Grand-Carteret -- Demand for specimens of good printing -- Dr. Nicholas -- Chineurs -- Guffroy -- Morel, otherwise Chipo teau -- The humbler book-hunters -- The Book-stealers. Notes and observations -- The lowest depths of thieving -- Breaking into the boxes -- Thefts in the daytime -- Robbery made easy -- The thief's devices -- A conspiracy among the book-binders -- Jules Levy's mistake -- The ' incomplete copy' swindle -- People who require watching -- The Physiology of the Bookstall-keeper. His origin and his career -- The old class of stall-keepers -- The introduction of the fixed boxes etc."
Ce volume a paru la même année que l'édition originale française : Bouquinistes et Bouquineurs, Physiologie des Quais de Paris, du Pont Royal au Pont de Sully (Paris, Ancienne Maison Quantin, 1893). Ce volume avait été imprimé à 1.600 exemplaires. Octave Uzanne dresse ici un historique anecdotier des bouquinistes de Paris, notamment ceux encore en activité ou qui l'ont été après la second Empire. Octave Uzanne aura retenu bien souvent des anecdotes graveleuses voire douteuses concernant bon nombre de ces hommes du livre, pour certains rudement traités. C'est le bouquiniste-bibliographe Antoine Laporte (maltraité plus qu'à son tour) qui répondra à ce livre par un pamphlet intitulé "Les bouquinistes et les quais de Paris tels qu'ils sont : Réfutation du pamphlet d'O. Uzanne." (Paris, chez tous les bouquinistes des Quais, 1893).
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