Enquête sur les premières éditions des Fables de La Fontaine (1668)
Type de matériel :
21
The publication, 350 years ago, of Les Fables choisies by La Fontaine, was more complex than previously thought. The two booksellers associated with the privilège, Claude Barbin and Denis Thierry, immediately conceived the project as combining a luxury in-quarto with a more economical in-12, both illustrated with François Chauveau’s engravings. This programme, which required time and the involvement of three different printers, stretched from June 1667 (obtaining the privilège) to October 1669 (end of printing). The printing work, begun by Denis Thierry in March 1668 with the in-quarto pages, was continued by Jacques II Langlois for the sheets in-12. Afterwards, an intaglio engraver printed a first state of Chauveau’s engravings onto the in-12 leaves, before printing a second version of most of the copper plates onto the in-quarto leaves. The association ended when Jacques II Langlois placed in his presses, in October 1668, in a separate and deferred manner, the prefatory material of the small format version. This is why the Fables of La Fontaine were not available in Paris before late summer or autumn 1668 and were then immediately counterfeited in Grenoble and then in Lyon.
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