Prélude au siècle des Lumières en France: répertoire chronologique de 1680 à1715, and: Le Siècle des Lumières: bibliographie chronologique (review)

With the appearance of the final volume of the Siècle, containing the last part of the Index des auteurs, this mighty enterprise, ranging over four decades, is at last concluded. Professor Conlon had already completed a comprehensive Bibliography, Ouvrages français relatifs Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1751–1799 (Geneva: Droz, 1981) — this appeared later than the Prélude — which, containing over a thousand items, might have been deemed a life's work in itself. The Prélude, however, was of a different order, covering a quarter-century and running to sixteen thousand entries. Here Pierre Conlon announces the essential lineaments that will be followed again in the larger Bibliographie chronologique. He will include all first editions published 'par des Français' (therefore also those written by authors outside France, such as, most notably, Pierre Bayle) and including anonymous works (which will swell hugely in the pre-Revolution years). Only purely administrative documents will be omitted. An Introduction containing important dates will accompany the purely bibliographical references. The specific bibliographical details will be set out more formally in the first volume of the Siècle: 'auteur, titre bref, adresse bibliographique et millésime, format et nombre de pages […] La cote a été relevée; elle est précédée du sigle adopté pour la bibliothèque, et d'un astérisque qui identifie l'exemplaire examiné' (p. v). 'Localisations' will range up to a maximum of five. While inevitably the main contributions will come from the Bibliothèque française, the British Library, and the National Union Catalog, the editor will case his net widely. (So much was this last principle adhered to that in the later volumes the number of libraries consulted comes to nearly three hundred.) The total number of entries in the Prélude is dwarfed by the Siècle, where the annual total never drops below five hundred and fifty items in early years, passes the thousand mark definitively by 1750, and attains the extraordinary heights of more than four thousand in 1788 and over eleven thousand in the year of the Revolution. This staggering compilation is agrémentée by an Introduction to each volume, which becomes a sort of journal of the period, where the editor is particularly attentive to the strained relations between King and Parlements throughout the century, climaxing in a meticulously detailed calendar of events in 1789 from the opening of the États généraux in May until the end of the year. But these Introductions also include accounts of, for instance, the (abortive) campaign in favour of inoculation in the 1750s or the new adventure of the 'ballons aérostatiques' launched by Montgolfier in 1783. Conlon also highlights the growing trend in translations from English, German, and Italian. One would incline to believe that this Herculean task was accomplished by a large team. In fact, the bulk of the work was carried out by Professor Conlon and his wife (who, sadly, did not survive to see its completion and to whose memory the last volumes are dedicated), along with a small number of devoted assistants. The lion's share was undertaken by countless visits to French libraries during vacations from McMaster University. Commentators have discovered a very few rare gaps. Some have lamented the absence of reprints — which is a counsel of utopian perfection. Such errors as have been spotted are minor. Perhaps a greater limitation lies in this being an undifferentiated collection, though to some extent mitigated by the Index des auteurs and by suggestions in the Introductions, such as the importance attached to military matters in the later volumes. But one must perforce note, with regret, that this admirable instrument de travail has not...