Published by - , Contact seller. First Edition Signed. Within U. Quantity: 1 available. The Russell Collection contains over books, broadsides, and pieces of ephemera produced between the waning decades of the ancien regime and the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The collection was assembled in the early s by William F. With material spanning the 16th to the early 20th century, the majority of the collection was produced between and Highlights include early editions of the and French Constitutions, letters written and signed by pioneering economist Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, and official documents signed by Robespierre and other members of the Comite du Salut Public. Most of the printed material was published by one of the two major publishing houses in Limoges.
This concentration of material from a single city offers perspective on the publication and distribution of political and governmental texts in a particular city or departement one which was especially impacted by the Crown's frequently shifting tax and trade policies. It also provides important insight into the early work and career of Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, who served as intendant of Limoges from Limoges was home to several printing houses which, at various times during the Monarchy and Revolution, were designated as official printers of government documents for the region.
Most notable among these were the Barbou and Dalesmes families. Both families had been established printers for centuries, but the Barbou appear to have been too closely aligned with the ecclesiastical hierarchy after , all of the officially published material printed in Limoges was released by members of chez Dalesme.
These items, ranging from royal decrees to trial testimonies, illustrate governmental practice under the monarchy, especially as it relates to trade policy and criminal justice. First or early editions by Mirabeau, Raynal, Mounier, Marat, and Condorcet, written before and during the upheavals of the early s, reveal the increasingly liberal and radical intellectual currents among France's intelligentsia.
