Abstract
Although a fair amount has been written about the ideas in Tyssot’s first novel, little attention has been given to the problems associated with its clandestine publication. As far as I know, only one authority, Professor Storer, has attempted an elucidation of the problems involved.1 Therefore, before discussing the novel itself, I shall try, first of all, to establish which was the first edition and when and where it was published. Afterwards, I shall comment on subsequent editions that appeared in English, German and French throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
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References
See M. E. Storer, “Bibliographical Observations on Foigny, Lahontan and Tyssot de Patot,” Modern Language Notes, LX (March 1945), pp. 143–156.
Both McKee and Storer were unaware that there were two “sphere” editions and, although they knew of its existence, neither of them had apparently seen a copy of edition C (see note 28).
For the same reason she excludes from the Aveline family: Pierre-Alexandre (1702–1760), Pierre-Alexandre (1702–1780) and François-Antoine (1718–1780).
I have not found this patently fictitious name elsewhere. According to G. Bouchon, Histoire d’une imprimerie bordelaise: 1600–1900, Bordeaux, 1901, p. 81, no such printer ever worked in Bordeaux. Storer cites other authorities to support this view.
See the articles, “S’il faut dire Bordeaux ou Bourdeaux,” Recueil de pièces curieuses et nouvelles, La Haye, Moetjens, 1695, pp. 128–136, 510–522.
Op. cit.
The spelling Bourdeaux is preferred in the Dutch contrefaçon of the Journal des sçavans; Tyssot’s Voyage de Groenland, Amsterdam, 1720, vol. I, p. 11; Bayle’s OEuvres diverses, La Haye, 1727–1731, 3 vols; The Present State of the Republick of Letters, XI (1733) ; Analyse raisonnée de Bayle, A Londres [Hollande], 1773. McKee, op. cit., inadvertently used Bourdeaux for all three editions. Storer noted the difference in spelling but attached no significance to it. I am not unaware that Montesquieu, in his correspondence, preferred the older spelling, but this seems to have been something of an idiosyncrasy.
See R. A. Sayce, “Compositorial Practices and the Localisation of Printed Books, 1530–1800,” The Library. XXI (March 1966), pp. 1–45. I am indebted to this article for most of my remarks on compositorial practices.
The identical headpiece is found on Al of L’Espion dans les cours des princes chrétiens, Amsterdam, 1756. Professor Storer does not seem to have noticed the signature of Caron, again the name of a well known French family of painters and engravers. Antoine-Nicolas (1719–1768) is the artist most likely to have done the 1756 headpiece but he can have had no connection with an edition published in 1710. Professor Storer was unaware that an almost identical portrait appears in edition G. Underneath the picture are the words: Portrait du Philosophe / Jacques Massé. Tiré de la / Bibliothéque de Mylord Bulinbroke. / Since the portrait is unsigned and since there was no such person as Jacques Massé we have not much to go on. G. Duplessis, Catalogue de la collection des portraits français, Paris, 1907, vol. VII, p. 177, simply describes the engraving and provides no additional information. Professor Storer thinks this is probably a picture of Tyssot himself. She sees a resemblance between this portrait and the one that appears in the OEuvres poétiques of 1727. However, I do not see this resemblance. In any case, if we were to apply purely aesthetic criteria, edition G could be shown to be as good a candidate as edition D for the first edition.
A partial list includes: Bibliotheca Uffenbachiana universalis, Francfort, Benj. etc., 1729, vol. I, p. 766; G. de Percel [Lenglet Dufresnoy], De l’Usage des romans, Amsterdam, Poilras, 1734, vol. II, p. 339; M. J. C. Mylius, Bibliotheca anonymorum et pseudonymorum, Hamburg, Brandt, 1740, vol. II, p. 766; D. Gerdes, Florilegium historico-criticum librorum rariorum, Groningen and Bremen, Spandow and Rump, 1747, p. 200; F. G. Freytag, Analecta Litteraria de libris rarioribus, Leipzig, 1750, p. 574; S. J. Baumgarten, Nachrichten von einer hallischen bibliothek, Hall, Gebauer, 1749, vol. III, p. 124; T. Georgi, Allgemeinen Europäischen Bücher-Lexici, Leipzig, 1753, vol. V, p. 250; J. A. Trinius, Freydenker-Lexicon, Leipzig and Bernberg, Fa-bricius, 1759, p. 501.
P. Marchand, Dictionnaire historique, La Haye, Hondt, 1758, vol. I, p. 318, note 39.
At the University of Wisconsin.
J. Nourisson (1731), a famous paper-maker of Auvergne, is listed in W. A. Churchill, Watermarks in Paper, Amsterdam, 1935, p. 61. An edict of 1741 required French paper-makers to date their paper according to the year it was manufactured. The edict came into effect from the beginning of 1742. Owing to a misunderstanding of the edict several paper-makers continued to mark their product with the year 1742 for many years subsequent to this date. See Churchill, op. cit., p. 58.
I am grateful to Professor W. Kirsop for the explanation of this phenomenon which may be observed, for example, in the monthly parts of such periodicals as Prévost’s Le Pour et contre.
The Voyage & Avant de J. Massé, aux Terres Australes &c was advertised in a catalogue of “Livres nouveaux qu’on trouve chez T. Johnson” in the 1720 and 1722 editions of the Journal Litéraire.
These events are recounted in the Lettres choisies, II, pp. 196–198, 375 and 398–410. The actual date of the duel is found in Appendix B.
Lettres choisies, II, p. 532.
This copy is in the University of Kansas.
See F. B. Kaye’s edition of Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, Oxford, 1924, 2 vols. The work first appeared in 1705 but did not acquire its present title until 1714 when it was advertised in the Post Boy for July 1–3 as just published. Kaye does not discuss the source of Mandeville’s new title.
The earliest reference I have found is in Gerdes, op. cit., p. 200, where he states the book was published “à Bourdeaux (i.e. à la Haye)”.
Marchand, op. cit., p. 318.
See the title-page of his édition of Les Mille et une nuits, La Haye, 1706, vol. III, and the headpiece on *2 in his edition of Les Lettres de Ciceron, La Haye, 1707, vol. I. At Harvard University there is a copy of edition A in which the headpiece has been replaced by a similar design but with the eleven-petalled flower at the right and the eight-petailed flower at the left. There are no apparent textual differences between this copy and other copies of edition A that I have seen.
For this discussion of ornaments and for other helpful suggestions I am indebted to Professor H. de la Fontaine Verwey of the Universiteitsbibliotheek, Amsterdam. I am also indebted to Mr. Braches of the Universiteitsbibliotheek, Leiden, for making it possible for me to examine over one hundred books published in The Hague during this period. One printer working for more than one publisher is the explanation of many title-page variants in XVIIth-century France. It is of interest to note that a headpiece identical to the one used by Husson is found on A2 of T. Johnson’s edition of J. Co-lerus, La Vie de Spinosa, La Haye, 1706. It has recently been suggested that the practice of one publisher using more than one printer for the same book may have been a factor in the case of the English piracy of De l’Esprit discussed by W. Kirsop, “Voltaire, Helvétius and an English Pirate,” Australian Journal of French Studies, IV, no. 1 (1967), pp. 62–73.
Johnson may simply have acquired Tyssot’s novel through an exchange of stocks. The common practice of exchanging books, and many other aspects of the Dutch book trade, are dealt with in I. H. van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse Boekhandel, 1680–1725, 1962–1967, 4 vols. I am grateful to Dr. van Eeghen for discussing this and related problems with me.
See Toland, Relation des cours de Prusse et de Hanovre, La Haye, 1706; Adeisi-daemon, La Haye, 1708. Information about The Hague publishers and a list of their publications is available in E. F. Kossmann, De Boekhandel te S s-Gravenhage, ‘s-Gra-venhage, 1937.
Tetradymus, London, Brotherton and Meadows, 1720. See also Chapter 1, note 63.
I am indebted to Professor Kirsop for this hypothesis of a variant state. Copies of B(ii) at Harvard University and the Newberry Library, Chicago, confirm the Australian findings. The Princeton University copy is too tightly bound for it to be claimed with certainty that *1 cancellans is conjugate with *4. I am grateful to Mr. Ivan Page, Keeper of Rare Books at the National Library of Australia, for information he supplied to Professor Kirsop about the copy of B(ii) in the Rex Nan Kivell Collection. I also wish to thank Mr. Ivo Hammett, Melbourne, for kindly permitting inspection of his copy of B(i) and the second edition of the English translation in his private collection. I am also grateful to Mr. R. van der Peet, Amsterdam, and to various branches of the Tissot van Patot family in Holland for kindly allowing me to examine their private collections.
That Jaques Kainkus is an assumed name is reported in E. Weller, Die falschen und fingierten Druckorte, Leipzig, 1964, vol. II, p. 76, and G. Brunet, Imprimeurs imaginaires et libraires supposés, Paris, 1866, p. 86. Although Professor Storer described this edition as “very rare” it will be seen (Appendix E) that copies may be found without difficulty. It is my impression that neither McKee nor Storer ever saw a copy of edition G since they both misspell the name Kainkus as Kaincus. This error may be traced to a misprint in Lachèvre, op. cit., p. 257.
See B. G. Landauer, Printers’ mottoes, New York, 1926, p. 23. I am grateful to Mildred E. Nickerson of the Houghton Library, Harvard University, for this information.
See Kossmann, op. cit., pp. 348–349.
Brieuen ... den Heer Johann de Witt, 1652–1669, VGravenhage, Hendrick Scheurleer, 1723, vol. I. The engraved vignette is signed by the well known B. Picart who came to live in Holland in 1710 where he died in 1733. As far as I know, Scheurleer did not use this vignette before 1723. Lettres de la Marquise de M*** au Comte de R***, La Haye, Henri Scheurleer, 1738. The vignette is unsigned. Mémoires de Condé, servant d’éclaircissement... à l’histoire de M. de Thou, vol. VI, La Haye, Pierre de Hondt, 1743. The engraved vignette is signed by Gl. Duflos. This could be the Parisian engraver, Claude Duflos (1678–1747), or his son Claude Augustin (?-1785).
The name Erasme Kinkius is especially associated with editions of L’Espion dans les cours des princes chrétiens published in 1696, 1710, and 1731, supposedly at Cologne.
It is interesting, although probably not significant, that there is no mention of Jaques Massé in the Catalogue des livres qui se trouvent dans la Bibliothèque publique recueillie par H. Scheurleer, La Haye, 1759.
Advertised in the London Magazine Monthly Catalogue for November 1732, The Travels and Adventures of James Massey, London, Watts, 1733, was issued only with the date 1733. Peter Marions, Eines gebohrnen Frantzosen Merckwürdige Lebens-Beschreibung ... aus dem Frantzösischen übersetzet von A.B.C., Leipzig und Görlitz, 1737.
Tyssot’s novel was attributed to the English writer Jacques Massé in J. F. Reim-mannus, Historia universalis atheismi et atheorum, Hildesiae, Schroeder, 1725, p. 458. Mandeville’s work was attributed to the English writer Jakob Masse in the review of J. L. Mosheim, Heilige Reden ... /. Christi, Zweiter Theil, Hamburg, 1727, in Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen, LXXX, Leipzig, 1727, pp. 796–797.
See Lanson’s edition of Voltaire’s Lettres philosophiques, Paris, 1964, vol. I, p. 175, note 233.
“Nous lisons Dom Galmet, qui nous fait plus plaisir que Jacques Massé.” McKee’s attribution of this remark to Mme du Châtelet (McKee, op. cit., p. 11) was corrected by G. R. Havens who, in his review of McKee’s monograph (Modern Language Notes, LVIII, Nov. 1943, pp. 572–573), ascribed the observation to Mme de Graffigny. The remark occurs in a letter she wrote from Cirey, in January 1739, to François Etienne Devaux. The letter (D1753) is included in Th. Besterman’s definitive edition of Voltaire’s OEuvres complètes, vol. 90, Geneva, 1970, pp. 35–36. Mémoires et journal inédit du marquis d’Argenson, Paris, Jannet, 1858, pp. 125–126 — “Ce livre a fait grand bruit dans son temps, et c’est encore aujourd’hui à la mode. C’est un voyage imaginaire dans les terres australes, en un pays où l’auteur prétend que l’on vivait sous la religion naturelle, avec une candeur et un ordre que l’on ne voit point sous la religion révélée. Il se prétend bon chrétien, mais il introduit des interlocuteurs qui lancent effrontément des arguments terribles contre la religion ... Cet auteur essuie beaucoup d’aventures bizarres, mais heureuses dans leur malheur. Il finit ses jours en Angleterre, dans un âge avancé, mais robuste de corps et d’esprit. Ce livre se lit avec intérêt, étant mélangé d’aventures singulières et de raisonnements nouveaux et profonds.” Since the entries in this journal are not dated it is possible that the reference is to the fourth and not the third edition.
See D. J. Fletcher, “The Fortunes of Bolingbroke in France in the Eighteenth Century,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, XLVII (1966), pp. 207–232.
Gove, op. cit., p. 217, found a reference to a 1734 Rouen edition in G. H. Stuck, Verzeichnis von alteren und neuern Land und Reis ehe Schreibungen, Halle, 1784–1787, I, p. 226. It is probable that Stuck obtained his information from Baumgarten or Vogt.
There are interesting similarities between this edition and the first English edition. Both have red and black title-pages and both have a decorative initial on A1.
In view of the identical watermarks it is possible that edition B was also published in Rouen.
I am grateful to Professor Kirsop for pointing out this close correspondence between editions B and D.
The explanation of this missigning is presumably that the compositor of edition G simply copied the signature of the leaf on which the “Lettre de l’Editeur” begins in editions A and B. The compositor of edition D presumably followed the preliminaries of edition C. The compression of the “Lettre de l’Editeur” and the “Table des chapitres” to two leaves in editions C and D was presumably done to allow for the inclusion of the frontispiece portrait, not present in A and B.
In the copy of edition G at the University of Tennessee the “Table des chapitres” precedes the “Lettre de l’Editeur”.
Reimmannus, op. cit., pp. 458–459.
In the preface to Bruzen de la Martinière, Grand Dictionnaire géographique et critique, is the following definition — “J’appelle voyages fabuleux non seulement, ceux de Sadeur, de Massé, de Leguat, et quantité d’autres qui n’ont pas plus de réalité que les songes d’un fébricitant...”
See Gamier, Voyages imaginaires ..., vol. 14, pp. xxi-xxii.
Op. cit., vol. I, p. 141 — “Je m’étendrais trop si je parcourais ce qui se trouve contre la religion dans l’Histoire imaginaire et romanesque des Sévarambes ; dans le fabuleux Voyage de Jacques Massé, que l’on a même proscrit en Hollande ...”
Peter Marions, Eines gebohrnen Frantzosen Merckwürdige Lebens-Beschreibung Worinnen viele wunderliche Begebenheiten enthalten. Die ihm in seinen Leben und auf Reisen zugestossen alles von ihm selbst wohl aufgezeichnet und seines Werths halben In rein Deutsch aus dem Frantzösischen übersetzet von A.B.C., Leipzig und Görlitz, 1737.
Travels and Adventures of James Massey. Translated from the Original French written by the Celebrated Monsieur Bayle. Being a General Criticism upon Religion, the several Arts and Sciences, Trade, Commerce, etc. ... The Second Edition: In which are inserted the Passages omitted in the First Edition. London, J. Watts, 1743. I have found no significant differences between the 1733 and 1743 English editions. However, there is, at the University of Kansas, a copy of the 1733 edition in which leaves 01 and 05 are cancels. The first cancel omits a derogatory reference to the Reformed Church and the second includes an explanation, not found in the original French, of the fable of the bees. Perhaps these are the insertions referred to in the title of the 1743 edition.
Peter Martons merckwürdiges Leben worinnen viele besondere Zufalle und Begebenheiten enthalten, die ihm vornehmlich auf Reisen zugestossen. Aus dem Französischen übersetzet. Leipzig und Görlitz, 1751.
Voyages et avantures de Jaques Massé, L’Utopie, chez Jaques l’Aveugle, 1760, 2 vols.
Gove, op. cit., p. 217, refers to a Ghapbook printed in London in 176?. I have not seen this edition which is at Harvard University.
Jakob Massens Reisen in unbekannte Länder und merkwürdige Begebenheiten auf denselben. Von ihm selbst beschrieben. Alexandrien [i.e. Ruppin], 1799. In H. Fromm, Bibliographie deutscher Übersetzungen aus dem Französischen, 1700–1948, Baden-Baden, 1950–1953, 6 vols., volume 6, p. 158, it is suggested that there was a 1760 édition of the above translation. Presumably this information was obtained from vol. Ill, p. 119, of M. Holzmann and H. Bohatta, Deutsches anonymen-lexicon, 1501–1926, Weimar, 1902–1928, 7 vols. I have, however, been unable to find a 1760 edition.
McKee lists an edition of The Voyages, Travels, and long Captivity of J. Massey, bound in with Obi; or the History of Three Fingered Jack, New Castle, 1800. The British Museum catalogue has the same entry but with 1820 as the date. The copy I have seen was printed in London by S. Fisher, 1802, and is bound in with The Life and Adventures of Henry Lanson, London, 1805. This copy is at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. McKee also lists an 1823 edition of The Travels and Adventures of James Massey which I have not seen.
McKee, op. cit., p. 12.
Mylius, op. cit., Pt. II, p. 766, “Voyages et Avantures de Jaques Massé, (a) Bour-deaux 1710. Auctor est Simon Tyssat [sic] de Patot, Prof. Mathes. in Gymnas. Daven-triensi.”
Tyssot’s novel was not included in Garnier’s collection of Voyages imaginaires, songes, visions, et romans cabalistiques, Amsterdam et Paris, 1787–1789, 36 vols. However, in volume 19, in the “Avertissement de l’éditeur” to Le Voyage de Nicolas Klimius, the authorship of Jaques Massé was attributed to M. de Mauvillon.
For some of these references see the article on Tyssot (spelled Tijssot) in van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden.
Le Breton, op. cit., p. 362, note (i). See J. M. Quérard, La France littéraire, Paris, 1827–1864, 12 vols., Vol. 9, p. 588.
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Rosenberg, A. (1972). The Publication of Jaques Massé . In: Tyssot de Patot and His Work 1655–1738. Archives Internationales D’histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4692-2_7
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