Jacques-Charles Brunet, le grand bibliographe: A Guide to the Books He Wrote, Compiled, and Edited and to the Book-Auction Catalogues He Expertised (review)

It is hard to think of anyone whose life was so totally devoted to bibliographical research as Jacques-Charles Brunet. His father, born in the small village of Morigny near the Norman Bocage town of Vire (almost destroyed by Allied bombing after the landings of 1944), moved to Paris where he opened a bookshop in the rue Mauconseil. His only son was born in 1780. Nothing is known of his education, except that it appears to have been interrupted, perhaps in 1792, by 'events following the Revolution'. The bookshop must have provided much of his schooling. He was only seventeen when he catalogued his first auction sale, of the library of a former Garde des Sceaux, Hue de Miroménil. He catalogued perhaps as many as forty-five, or even sixty, auction sales before 1824, when he abandoned commerce to concentrate exclusively on bibliography.

He seems to have been fascinated at an early date by the three-volume Dictionnaire bibliographique, historique et critique, des livres rares of André-Charles Cailleau (Paris, 1790), and in 1802 produced a 511-page Supplement. The first edition of the Manuel du Libraire appeared in 1804. This was followed by a second edition in 1814, a third in 1820, and a three-volume Nouvelles recherches bibliographiques in 1834. This was pirated by the Belgians, who produced an unauthorized 'quatrième édition' in 1838–45. The true fourth edition was published in five volumes in 1842–44 and the fifth and last edition, with 31,872 entries in six volumes, in 1860–65. Brunet contributed a large quantity of notes for this final edition but refused to edit it himself. This was left to the publisher Ambroise Firmin-Didot, who cannot have had an easy task. The great bibliographer, by then eighty years old and convinced of his own omniscience, remained deaf to outside suggestions for additions or corrections.

Brunet also published bibliographical notices on Rabelais, printed Books of Hours, and the macaronic poet Giovan Giorgio Alione of Asti, and the Mémoires et correspondance of Madame d'Épinay. The last named was a novel, which Brunet mistook for an autobiography and added several genuine letters. It was, notwithstanding, a runaway success and three more editions were needed in the same year.

Brunet has been something of an icon to the antiquarian book trade and in 1962 the International League sponsored a reprint, edited by Cesare Olschki, of the tributes to him by Le Roux de Lincy, Silvestre de Sacy, Jules Janin, Nodier, Dibdin, and Paul Lacroix. If they have been wondering 'Qui bibliographera le grand bibliographe?', here is the answer. Roger Stoddard, William A. Jackson's successor as Harvard's Grand Acquisitor, is a long-time fan and collector of Brunet. His bibliography is concise and thorough, and elegantly produced. He provides descriptions and collations of books by Brunet published up to 1869 (the 1966 reprint of the Manuel is excluded) and of eight related works, and makes a brave effort to identify the sale catalogues compiled by the Brunets père et fils. Sixty-eight catalogues are described, but two appear to relate to other Brunets and it is uncertain whether Jacques-Charles would have been the compiler when his name is only one of those distributing the catalogue. If ever a complete list of French nineteenth-century book-sale catalogues is issued — at present the only list of those in the Bibliothèque nationale de France is sixteen years old and ends at 1750 — it should be possible to add to this number. The most important sale was that of comte Leon d'Ourches in 1811. This contained a fine series of incunabula, headed by the Gutenberg Bible (now at Eton) and the 1459 Durandus. The series ends with the sales...