Enquête sur l’auteur des Fragmens de Molière (1682)
Type de matériel :
69
At the end of the 17th century, the authorship of some comedies published in France or abroad was not particularly well established. The comedy entitled Les Fragmens de Molière, published in 1682 in Paris by Jean Ribou, is a typical case of confusion as to the identity of the real author of the work. Originally published without any author’s name, the comedy was attributed to various actors. Book catalogues of the time hesitated between Anonymous and Brécourt. In 1692 however, the bookseller Thomas Guillain bound the play as a factitious collection, put on sale in 1696 and again in 1702, and entitled Les Œuvres de M. de Champmeslé. Subsequent literature bibliographers and historians of literature unquestioningly endorsed Champmeslé as the author of Les Fragmens de Molière. However, the archives of the Communauté des libraires et imprimeurs de Paris (Guild of Booksellers and Printers of Paris) prove that it was actually the actor Jean-François Juvenon, Sieur de La Tuillerie, who held the Privilège (i.e., the precursor to copyright) for Les Fragmens de Molière. The inquiry shows how an error was made and perpetrated, facilitated by the absence of Privilège in the original edition. For this, the blame can be attributed to Claude Blageart, the printer, and his penchant for keeping printing costs down: the title page was placed in the typographic form of the last page, after which the page was cut out and glued on top of the first page. As can be seen, back in those days, the creation of a printed work could be a somewhat makeshift undertaking.
Réseaux sociaux