Lettre trentième concernant l'imprimerie et la librairie de Paris, traduite de l'Anglais, avec des Notes, par G.A. Crapelet.

Paris: Crapelet, 1821.

Price: $750.00


About the item

First edition, one of 100 copies printed. Printer's device on title. [4], viii, 71 pp. 8vo (270 x 170 mm). Contemporary paper-backed boards, title inked in contemporary hand to upper cover. Some toning to margins of boards, chipping at joints, hinges strengthened, scattered light foxing but a clean copy overall. In custom clamshell box. Jackson 50; Windle and Pippin A39.

Item #306621

Dibdin's treatment of the Paris printing and bookselling scene in his Bibliographical Tour provoked this translation and annoyed response (in the preface and footnotes) from the great printer Crapelet, who took exception to numerous aspects of Didbin's account, including the praise reserved for Crapelet himself. Dibdin published a response to Crapelet's pamphlet the same year.

The half-title reads: "Voyage Pittoresque en France et en Allemagne, Relatif a la Bibliographie et aux Antiquités par le Rev. Th. Frognall Dibdin"