Rare. OCLC records copies at Stanford, Yale, Emory, Harvard, Michigan, Rutgers (digital copy) and Pennsylvania (not found in the catalogue). The first French edition of Robinson Crusoe was published in Amsterdam in 1720. An abridgement by Thomas Gent, first published in 1722
A very handsome copy of an early 19th-century English language edition of Robinson Crusoe printed in Paris most likely as an aid for French readers learning English.
The advertisement (bound before the half-title here) for other books published by Theophilus Barrois lists various English/French grammars and dictionaries (including remarkably an edition of Daniel Fenning’s popular Universal Spelling-Book printed in Chester in 1799, which is not in ESTC) as well as English novels such as The Vicar of Wakefield (1779), Roderick Random (1786) and The History of Tom Jones (1780, “très belle édit”). This edition highlights the continuing popularity of English novels on the Continent in the 19th-century and the extent to which Robinson Crusoe was already firmly placed as one of the most popular English novels of all time.
Provenance: Douglas Burns Drysdale, presentation inscription “from ?Chirco” on the front flyleaf. Dated 23.7.[1918] at Château de Viezigneux Tracy-le-Val which was, at that time, on the Western Front during the First World War.
