Beschreibung:

(Genet, Edmé-Jacques, editor)Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique. Antwerp [but Paris], 1776-1779 8vo, 14 volumes in 11 (200 x 124 mm). Some light browning and soiling. Contemporary French quarter calf gilt, patterned paper over boards, edges stained red; spines restored with backstrips laid down, some wear to edges of boards. Blue buckram slipcase. A fundamental work of great rarity on the American Revolution: the first European Printings of Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation. Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique contains among the earliest, and in some cases the first, European printings of many of the most basic documents in American history. The series was produced by the French government in order to inform the French public of the origins and course of the American Revolution, and to build and justify support among the French aristocracy and bureaucracy for the eventual Franco-American alliance. With the crucial editorial assistance of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams the Affaires helped accomplish this goal, as well as providing the French people with their first taste of American democratic philosophy. Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, though bearing an Antwerp imprint, was actually produced by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was available from the French bookseller Pissot. The false imprint and anonymity maintained by the editor served to hide the fact that it was issued by the French government and helped maintain a façade of impartiality. The first issue appeared on 4 May 1776, and publication proceeded through October 1779. The series was edited by Edmé-Jacques Genet, chief interpreter to the French Foreign Minister, the Comte de Vergennes, Chief among Genet's American sources was Benjamin Franklin who arrived in Paris on 21 December 1776, Among the first documents Franklin provided to Genet was a copy of John Dickinson's draft of the Articles of Confederation. In the United States these were still secret documents which had only circulated in committee in the Continental Congress. The Articles were translated in full and appear in the 27 December 1776 edition of Affaires, constituting "the first unrestricted publication in any language of the Articles of the Confederation" (Echeverria). Franklin also provided Genet with American newspapers, copies of his own correspondence, and old essays, all documenting the development of the rift between Great Britain and her American colonies in a light very favorable to the colonists. John Adams arrived in Paris in the spring of 1778 and was also very active in supplying Genet with newspapers, copies of his own letters, and rebuttals of British propaganda. With such well-placed American contacts, it is not surprising that Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique contains some of the earliest appearances of many of the basic works of the Revolutionary era. Affaires was issued intermittently in parts. Bibliographer Paul L. Ford calls it "one of the most intricate and puzzling studies in collation." Howes notes that sets are made up of "twenty-four parts divided into fifteen volumes," but are usually bound in seventeen volumes. Sabin concurs on twenty-four parts, while LeClerc catalogued an incomplete set of only thirteen parts. Ford throws out the notion of "parts" entirely, giving a complete collation in fifteen volumes. The present set is a nearly complete run of Affaires, containing some ninety-five percent of the entire text. It lacks one volume late in the series, identified as the fifteenth volume in Ford's collation. As Bédard notes, however, 1779 constituted the waning days of Affaires and most of the information in the final volume is made up of accounts of French and Spanish military affairs. They contain little in the way of significant American documentary material. "Essential for the Revolutionary period" (Sabin). "Collection des plus importantes pour la periode de la revolution des Etat