The publication history of
Contes moraux is complex, to say the least, and further complicated by the obfuscations and alterations of unauthorised editions. To untangle the work’s publication history in Denmark–Norway, a short introduction to its early international publication history is necessary. Marmontel had fallen from royal grace in 1759 for reciting a satirical poem. When the encyclopaedist remerged from the Bastille in January 1760, stripped of his editorial post at the
Mercure, he turned to collecting his tales. The author added a preface explaining the genre and his style along with three new stories and his well-received article ‘Apologie du Théâtre’. Two small volumes of
Contes moraux appeared in January 1761 ‘À la Haye’ [n The Hague], causing immediate success. However, they were probably printed semi-officially in Paris.
1 M. Freund, Die moralischen Erzählungen Marmontels (Halle 1904, pp. 82–3) lists three different 1761 editions (all 2 vols in duodecimo) with ‘À La Haye’ imprint and no publisher/printer. One is probably by Lesclapart in Paris (see below) and one a French pirate edition. In his Memoires Marmontel writes: ‘the first editions of my Tales began to enrich me’ (London, 1805), vol. 2, p. 220. At the time of this edition, books (often novels) with a so-called ‘tacit permission’ flourished. These were approved by a censor, but without a privilège and often with a false imprint indicating a city outside France (R. Darnton, Pirating and Publishing (Oxford, 2021), pp. 23, 54). When a privileged edition by Lesclapart in Paris appeared a few months later, it was called new and revised, identical to one of the editions from The Hague.
2 The copperplate signatures are difficult to make out but look identical. The privilege is dated 29 May and 11 July 1761 for Contes moraux and 22 September for the three new stories (reprinted in the Lesclapart edition, vol. 2, 1761). See also M. Freund 1904, pp. 7 and 82–3. This time, Marmontel had included three unpublished stories in the second volume, also sold separately as
Suite de Contes moraux. According to the author, they were particularly well suited for theatre adaptations. Four years later, in the third edition, the author notes that his stories had appeared in several languages and on stages in Paris and London. This edition, published by J. Merlin in Paris, contains a further five new stories. The author altered the sequence of stories to vary the tone and create contrasts between stories.
3 Marmontel, ‘Préface’, in his Contes moraux (Paris, 1765), vol. 1, p. XV. Adding and altering the content of books helped prolong the duration of the book’s privilège (R. Darnton, Pirating and Publishing, p. 33).The illustrated and expensive Merlin edition (produced in two formats) aimed to outshine the numerous
éditions furtives, some probably printed in France but many certainly abroad. Marmontel later described how during a visit to Liège in 1767 a printer-bookseller named Bassompierre informed him that his reprints were sold across the German states, including four editions of
Contes moraux and three of the novel
Bélisaire (1767). ‘What!’ Marmontel interrupted, ‘you steal from me the fruit of my labour!’ The printer responded that he had the right to print anything good – ‘that is our trade’ – as French privileges did not apply there, and that the editions printed in France were making the author quite rich enough.
4 Marmontel, Memoirs, vol. 3, pp. 94–5. Dating of the journey: D. Droixhe, ‘“Elle me coute dix milles écus’. La contrefaçon des œuvres de Molière offerte par l’imprimeur Bassompierre à Marmontel”’, Revue français d’histoire du livre, No. 114–15 (2002), pp. 125–64. Freund (Die moralischen Erzählungen Marmontels, p. 84) only lists one Liège edition before 1767. French pirate editions of the
Contes moraux appeared across Europe from 1761 onwards. As Bassompierre pointed out, the printers and publishers were within their rights to do so, as were publishers of translations. In the 1760s there emerged French editions in The Hague, Amsterdam and Leipzig, cities that like Liège were known for their reprint industry.
5 On the cities involved in the pirating industry of French books outside of France, see R. Darnton, Publishing and Pirating, particularly chapter 3. Furthermore, the same decade saw translations into German, English, Swedish and Dutch in volume editions and periodicals – to say nothing of the countless ‘moral tales’ churned out by other authors.
Katherine Astbury depicts the development of the genre in France and Germany and demonstrates that it was adapted in terms of morality, politics and literary taste as it crossed linguistic and cultural borders.
6 K. Astbury, The Moral Tale. The British seem to have preferred the stories in translation, or simply importing the French or Dutch editions. Robert L. Dawson argues that an edition
sans lieu from 1768, made (according to the title page) ‘Suivant l’Edition de Paris, chez Merlin’ [after Merlin’s Paris edition] must be the first French edition printed in Britain.
7 R. L. Dawson, ‘Marmontel Made in Britain’, Australian Journal of French Studies, 38:1 (2001), 107–23. It turns out it is not. Rather it is a case of the periphery of European printing apparently being closer to the centre than we generally think.