Abstract
Copy-specific features in twenty-six copies of Émilie Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique (Paris, 1740) were investigated. Found were textual variants created by removal and replacement of leaves and by corrections made during printing. The discovery of an excised leaf permits learning of the author’s change-of-mind about the resolution of the controversy between the Newtonians and Cartesians concerning the shape of the earth. Evidence was found to indicate that the text was printed in two press runs. Examination revealed that Du Châtelet’s book with the fictitious imprints Londres 1741 and Amsterdam 1741 was printed from the same standing type as was used for the Paris 1740 imprint; presumably the 1741 imprints resulted from a commercial arrangement, including special title pages, between Du Châtelet’s publisher in Paris and booksellers in the other cities. In the case of the second edition, 1742, of Du Châtelet’s text, the false imprint, Amsterdam, was created by the Paris publisher probably to avoid the need for a review of the new text by a Paris censor.
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Acknowledgements
Reports by Daniel De Simone, Caroline Duroselle-Melish, David Gary, Melissa Lo, Laura Rips, and Cindy Rogers about institutional copies of Du Châtelet’s book are gratefully acknowledged. Information provided by Stephen Tabor is appreciated.
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Smeltzer, R.K. (2022). Printing Du Châtelet’s Institutions De Physique: The Variant Texts. In: Hagengruber, R.E. (eds) Époque Émilienne. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89921-9_24
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