Balzac vs typographers
June 8, 2020 7:53 AM

Is there a good, basic summary about Balzac’s conflicts with typographers and why he only had one trusted typographer in Paris?
posted by pxe2000 to Education (3 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
I assume it would be covered in this French seemingly out-of-print book about the young Balzac and his early career as a printer?
posted by vacapinta at 11:21 AM on June 8, 2020


… which is conveniently available at the Internet Archive.

There may have been personal reasons outside this (Balzac had tried to be a printer at one point in his career), but I remember from studying Scottish publishing history that French typesetting of the time was about the fastest and cheapest in Europe. Many Scottish books were printed in France, and there were literary mutterings at the time that the attention to detail from the French presses wasn't great. Whether this was just down to the language difference or whether the general standard tended towards quick and dirty, I don't know.
posted by scruss at 1:12 PM on June 8, 2020


This book makes me wish I had kept up my French studies. :-/
posted by pxe2000 at 5:38 PM on June 8, 2020


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