André Le Breton
André François Le Breton (* August 1708 in Paris ; † October 5, 1779 Paris) was a French publisher and court printer ( imprimeur ordinaire du Roy ) in the Age of Enlightenment . He was next to Gottfried Sellius and John Mills one of the three initiators of an encyclopedia project, which later under the guidance of Denis Diderot to Encyclopédie was that also came out with his cooperation.
Live and act
His maternal grandfather was the bookseller, printer and publisher Laurent d'Houry (1683–1725), who published the famous Almanach royal , an annual reference work in folio format authorized by the king . His father was André Le Breton, his mother Elisabeth d'Houry. Her brother Charles-Maurice d'Houry (1688–1755) took over the printing company from grandfather Laurent d'Houry after his death.
Le Breton seized the opportunity in April 1745 and applied for a privilege to print a multi-volume book, the Encyclopédie . This was granted to him on January 21, 1746. But first of all, a pure translation of the British Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences , published in 1728 and edited by Ephraim Chambers was considered. To do this, he teamed up with three other publishers, Antoine-Claude Briasson , Michel-Antoine David and Laurent Durand . Jean-Paul de Gua de Malves was entrusted with the organizational management . In 1747 he gave up his participation in this project and Diderot took over his function. The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers emerged from the original project .
At Diderot's suggestion, additional texts were added. What was initially supposed to generate a prestige object for the glory of the king became a box office hit: in 1754, well over 4,000 copies of the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers were printed instead of the planned 1,625 copies. The collaboration of the philosopher Denis Diderot and the mathematician d'Alembert, as well as other encyclopedists, shifted the cyclopaedia's focus on theology in an enlightening direction, which was positively received by the readers. The volumes were reprinted across Europe, some illegally. Overall, it is estimated that the total number of copies sold is around 25,000.
The original texts of the Enlightenmentists were changed by Le Breton at their own discretion and to Diderot's annoyance, probably out of fear of the publisher that they would otherwise not pass the censorship . Le Breton found support in this in his confidante contremaître Louis-Claude Brullé . Because of this internal censorship, Le Breton and John Mills often got into arguments, and once there was even a court hearing with Breton as the defendant because of physical abuse, which ended in an acquittal. Le Breton and also the other publishers were not only slightly oriented towards the benefit of the publication of the Encyclopédie as a publishing project, but also took the manpower of Louis de Jaucourt , for example , but also of Denis Diderot in a very calculating way, with in some cases inadequate remuneration Claim.
Le Breton was the syndic of the Paris booksellers guild communauté des libraires .
Works (selection)
Individual evidence
- ^ Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Denis Diderot, online
- ^ ORF ON Science. Gerald Heidegger. ORF.at, online ( Memento of the original from November 8, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Werner Raupp : Diderot, Denis. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 25, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-332-7 , Sp. 221-288.
- ↑ Frank A. Kafker : The Encyclopedists as a group. A collective biography of the authors of the Encyclopédie, Oxford 1996, p. 99
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Le Breton, André |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lebreton, André François |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French bookseller, printer, publisher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 1708 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 5, 1779 |
| Place of death | Paris |