Marc-Michel Rey

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Title page of the first edition of Nouvelle Héloïse , still under the original title “Lettres de deux amans”, published by Marc-Michel Rey, Amsterdam 1761

Marc-Michel Rey (born May 5, 1720 in Geneva , † June 8, 1780 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch publisher and promoter of Enlightenment literature .

Live and act

Rey was the son of French Huguenots . His father was Isaac Rey (* approx. 1695) and his mother was Marguerite du Seigneur (* approx. 1697). According to his own statements, he had only a low level of schooling. He completed an apprenticeship with a Geneva bookseller and publisher Marc-Michel Bosquet from 1733 to 1744. Then, in 1744, he moved to Amsterdam, where he acquired civil rights and opened a publishing business. In Amsterdam he became the most important publisher of the French Enlightenment as early as 1755 . In particular, Rousseau's works (including Emile and Nouvelle Héloise ) were first published by him.

The System of Nature by Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach was also published here in 1770, but with Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud (1675–1760) as the author and London as the place of publication in the title page.

On April 24, 1747 he married in Buiksloot (Amsterdam), Elisabeth Bernard, the daughter of the bookseller and publisher Jean Frédéric Bernard . They had two children Isaac Rey (* 1748) and Marguerite Jeanne Rey (* 1749).

literature

  • Johannes Bosscha (ed.): Lettres inédites de Jean Jacques Rousseau à Marc Michel Rey . Frédéric Muller, Amsterdam and Firmin Didot Frères, Paris 1858. (digitized version)
  • Max Fajn: Marc-Michel Rey: Boekhandelaar op de Bloemmark (Amsterdam). In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 118, No. 3 (June 7, 1974), pp. 260-268 ( JSTOR 986444 - 1st page free)
  • Jeroom Vercruysse: Marc-Michel Rey, libraire des lumières. In: Roger Chartier (ed.): Histoire de l'édition française. Volume 2: Le livre triomphant, 1660-1830. Promodis, Paris 1984, ISBN 2-213-02400-6 , p. 322 f.

Web links

Commons : Marc-Michel Rey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Société Genevoise de Généalogie
  2. ↑ Jeroom Vercruysse: Dictionnaire des journalistes (1600–1789) .
  3. ^ Frédéric Barbier, Henri-Jean Martin: Marc-Michel Rey 1720–1780. École pratique des hautes études, IVe section, Sciences historiques et philologiques. Librairie Droz., 1997, ISBN 2-600-00198-0 .
  4. ↑ Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, Wijnand Mijnhardt (Eds.): Bernard Picart and the First Global Vision of Religion. JP Getty Trust Pubn. 2010, ISBN 978-0-89236-968-3 , pp. 28 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Rey, Marc-Michel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION publisher
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1780
Place of death Amsterdam