| Item Description: | Printed paper wrapper has date 1830.
Michael Laird, bookseller, description: Only edition of the catalogue of the collection of a remarkable provincial lending library, a snapshot of some thousand monographs and serials that documented rural life in its broadest sense, including animal husbandry, farming, economics, trade, transportation, natural sciences, geography, and technology. The catalogue is tantamount to a bibliography of essential reference works in these subjects that were written and published in France ca. 1801-1828. Established in 1799, this library exchanged journals with kindred organizations in fifty-nine cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Calcutta, London and Turin. The library also housed realia, maps and drawings. The library owned approximately 75-85 volumes on veterinary medicine and domestic animals (see pp. 18-25), and thereby providing a first-hand view of a provincial French library's holdings in these areas, no less than 189 years ago. Unusually, the compiler's provided the names of the publisher's of every work, Mme Huzard being ubiquitous. Printed here for the first time are the library's rules which stipulate that all title-pages must be stamped; that only members may borrow books; that books lost or returned in poor condition be replaced; and that an annual physical inventory be taken. |
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