Trade in French books in Zagreb : 1796-1823

The intention of this paper is to contribute to the picture of the book trade in Zagreb in the late 18 and early19 century. The objectives of the research were to find out which booksellers’ catalogues were available in Croatian capital Zagreb in that period and to illustrate the conclusions that can be drawn from the information gathered by focusing on a narrow topic: trade in French books in a particular period. A focus on French books was inspired by the importance of French culture in Europe of that time. The research included eight available catalogues published by three prominent Zagreb-based booksellers between 1796 and 1823. The resources were observed and their contents, format and internal organisation described which was followed by comparative analysis of 245 French titles indexed in these catalogues. Conclusions have been suggested about the availability of French books in Zagreb as well as pricing policy and other practices of the booksellers of that time. Possible contribution to book history in Croatia is not only in the results but also in the type of analysis performed.


Introduction
Booksellers' catalogues have been recognized by researchers as a useful resource for book history, one that reveals what was printed and published at a certain time; what was acquired in a certain community and from where; what was sold, owned, and possibly read.According to Coppens (1995: 450), exploring information from booksellers' catalogues is not only contributing to the social history of the book, but also to the comparative literature, history of science, philological research and economic history.In Croatia, where social history of books is a relatively new field, booksellers' catalogues have not been sufficiently explored.They have not been adequately appreciated either, so it is difficult to trace them in the libraries.This research is therefore limited to the eight available catalogues published by three prominent booksellers in Zagreb in the late 18 th and early 19 th century.It focuses on Booksellers' catalogues from Zagreb have been mentioned in Croatian literature.In his major work Aleksandar Stipčević (2005) summarizes all aspects of book history from the 15 th to the 18 th century.He provides a general overview of difficult economic and cultural circumstances in Croatia where very few texts were printed in Croatian language, as Latin was prevailing in academic writing and German in public life.However, new liberal ideas have spread from Europe all the way to Zagreb, among other ways through locally sold foreign books.Stipčević describes several booksellers' catalogues and he briefly mentions the presence of French books in Zagreb, indicating the fields of research where contribution is needed.Few older works provide many details about Croatian booksellers and vividly describe the context in which they worked.Vjekoslav Klaić (1922) reconstructed the history of printers and booksellers in a manner of a traditional historian, including their personal life and family feuds, which were part of their competition for the market.Klaić seems to have had access to more catalogues than is possible today and used them as a historical source in writing about all three booksellers whose catalogues are a subject of this research.Velimir Deželić (1925) provided even more details about the printer and bookseller Antun Novosel and his catalogues.Olga Maruševski (1975) wrote about the bookseller Franjo Župan who saw a business opportunity in trading with French authorities when Zagreb was only 50 km away from the border of Napoleon's Illyrian provinces (1809)(1810)(1811)(1812)(1813)(1814)(1815)(1816).The works of Tatjana Puškadija Ribkin (1992,1993,1994,2005,2007), based on her research of archival documents, shed even more light on the life of a printer Libellarium, III, 2 (2010): 135 -152 and bookseller in Zagreb, which seems to be similar to the life of a printer in the rest of Europe at the time.A recent paper by Marijana Tomić (2008) is the only example found in Croatian literature, showing how data gathered from the bookseller's catalogue can be analysed and interpreted.
When embarking on a research of old catalogues, one should be familiar with historical context in which the booksellers whose catalogues are being researched were running their business.Igor Karaman (1989) describes a small and poor country on the outskirts of the Habsburg Monarchy, constantly being in danger of Turkish occupation.While industry was being developed and revolutions were taking place in the European countries, Croatia still had predominantly rural population and the feudal system was still strong, not being endangered by an insignificant number of citizens and tradesmen.Some of the reforms in administration and agriculture imposed by centralised and absolutist rule of enlightened monarchs in the period from 1740-1790 were beneficial for Croatia.One of them was the opening of state schools in 1776, which eventually had an impact on the level of education of the general population.Zagreb was a small town with wooden houses, which were frequently destroyed by fire, and a population of only several thousand.

Methodology
It is the intention of this paper to contribute to the picture of the book trade in Zagreb in the late 18 th and early 19 th century.Book trade is perceived as a part of national and international economy as described by Lesage, Netchine and Sarrazin (2006) or Darnton (1982), while at the same time being a part of cultural exchange, as seen by Stipčević (2005) and many other authors.A focus on French books was inspired by the importance of French culture in Europe of that time.In an attempt to achieve these goals, the following research questions have been asked: What resources are available for research into the trade of French books in Zagreb?What can we learn from them about the scope and character of that trade?
In order to answer the first research question two relevant collections of old books in Zagreb were consulted -The Library of Croatian Academy of Science and Art and the Collection of manuscripts and old books at the National and University Library (NSK), but resources were identified only in the latter.The search through several thousands of digitized catalogue cards resulted in finding three catalogues published by the bookseller Franjo Župan, two catalogues published by the bookseller Franjo Rudolf and two catalogues published by the printer and bookseller Antun Novosel (see List of resources used for research 1 ).Because of the close relation between the two Novosel's catalogues with the one published and analysed by Tomić (2008), the information from this re-printed edition was also used.After searching for French titles, a total 1 Some of the catalogues mentioned in the literature could not be found as authors sometimes did not provide the location.
of 245 items were identified (Table 1).Interestingly, four of the catalogues used for this research were bound together in one volume (shaded grey in Table 1).** Extensive catalogues were not analyzed in detail, so the total number of books was estimated on the basis of number of pages and an average respective number of titles printed on each page.
*** The number of different titles is smaller, as later catalogues by the same bookseller usually contain some percentage of the same titles, unsold since the publication of earlier catalogues.
Upon identifying the resources, a methodology described by Coppens (1995) was used: catalogues were observed as physical objects and their internal organisation was described as well as the presence or absence of information about listed books.Full references of 245 French books identified in the catalogues were then entered in MS Excel spreadsheets and an analysis was performed based on available information on the author, title, place and date of publication, price and format.Figures included in this paper resulted from those spreadsheets.

Description of the catalogues
Common characteristics.Based on the observation of the catalogues some common characteristics can be established.Very important for this research is the fact that in all eight catalogues books were indexed in the language, alphabet and typeface in which they were printed, thus enabling easier identification of French books.It also became very obvious that German language was prevailing in the business of printing and selling books, as the majority of listed titles were printed in German using Gothic typeface. 2In addition, seven out of eight catalogues have full or part of their titles in German, while only one has a title in Croatian language (Novosel, 1800?).Moreover, if there is any text in the catalogue, such as instructions for buyers or remarks on the book binding or similar, it is also in German, a part of it even appearing in the catalogue with the Croatian title.The second largest group of books listed in the catalogues is of those in Latin language, while books in Croatian, French, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian or Greek appear scarcely. 3A more precise ratio of languages cannot be stated here as the number of titles in the extensive catalogues was estimated, not counted.However, the distribution of languages observed here is similar to conclusions presented by Tomić (2008) based on precise analysis of a single catalogue.
In all eight catalogues alphabetical order was used as a way of organising the index, either as the only method or it was used within sections.As description of items was not standardised, a book was sometimes placed in the alphabetical order according to author's name and sometimes according to the first letter of the title.
All eight catalogues are marked in National and University Library (NSK) in Zagreb as being in octavo format, and this proved correct when the pages were counted and some obvious differences found between sheets.However, only one catalogue really looks like octavo (Rudolf 1822), others have been trimmed down to a very small size, looking like sextodecimo.It is known that octavo was used for printing catalogues since the time of bookseller Robert Estienne in Paris in the 16 th century (Pollard and Erhmann 1965, 53).In addition, in only one of the catalogues a list of books is arranged in two columns (Rudolf, 1822).A two column type of catalogue was known since the Aldine catalogues in Venice in the 16 th century (Pollard and Ehrman 1965, 58), but in the time of Zagreb booksellers it was only used in quarto catalogues to which the Rudolf 1822 catalogue resembles in size.
Out of eight catalogues only one contains a numbered list of book titles (Rudolf 1812); all others leave to the readers to notice the indented beginning of a description of a new item.
Another detail noticed by simple observation is that in all catalogues at least some books were sold bound, as descriptions offer numerous notices on binding.This confirms that all booksellers were selling second hand books, although only one catalogue distinctively claims offering old books.
2 This is not a surprise as Klaić (1922) wrote about the complaints of Croatian printers who had significant costs when forced to buy gothic fonts, referring to the period between 1750 and 1790.3 In all eight catalogues only four English titles were identified, although one of them was Shakespeare's plays in 20 volumes.Prices of books in all catalogues are in florins and smaller coins called krajcar -the official currency of the Habsburg Monarchy.There were 60 krajcars to 1 florin and prices were formed depending on existing coins (1, 3, 6, 12, 15 and 30 krajcars).When Rudolf Horvat (1994) analysed monetary policy in the Habsburg Monarchy, he wrote about the insufficient cash-flow throughout the 18 th century.Money was not easy to come by and was valuable.For example, Zagreb county prefect wrote at the time about the army buying a one-year-old foal for 12 florins (Pusić 1999).This changed during the wars with Napoleon; more money was printed and it was depreciated.For example, in 1810 a pair of boots cost 80 florins.This lead to official depreciation, and since March 1811, 1 florin equalled only 12 krajcars.This must be taken into consideration when discussing the prices of books.
The most important common characteristic of the eight catalogues is that all of them contain French titles.Their number varies between three in Župan's catalogue of 1814 and 96 in Novosel's catalogue of 1801, but the percentage of French titles relative to the total number of titles varies much less.Only one catalogue stands out with French titles representing 7% of the total offer (Župan 1817?), while the others contained between 0.9 % and 3% of the total offer.This should not be surprising as it is known that there were a very small number of educated people in Zagreb 4 at the time and that French was the language of the higher class throughout Europe.People who spoke French in Zagreb could only come from a very select part of society -aristocracy and higher ranking clerical circles.
When Pollard and Ehrman (1965) described their catalogues, they claimed that the purpose of catalogues was sometimes not certain.As the same companies were printing, binding and selling books, catalogues were sometimes made for one purpose, either for inventories, sales, retail or exchange, and would then be copied and used for another purpose.However, it seems that Zagreb catalogues were most likely used for sale in the bookshops or by order, as all eight catalogues always refer to the book by its title and price, while other information is not consistent and is often omitted.In addition, some of the buying or ordering options that were described in three catalogues (Novosel 1796 and 1800?, Rudolf 1822?) seem to be addressing the end-customer and not the retailer.
The catalogues from Antun Novosel's bookshop (1794-1825).The oldest of the eight catalogues published in 1796 comes from the bookshop of Antun Novosel and is well known to the Croatian book history writers from Klaić (1922) to Tomić (2008).It is neatly printed on 135 numbered pages with a separate title page and it is found today bound together with several other catalogues, four of which are from Croatian 4 Krešimir Nemeth (1957) found out that Zagreb Academy was producing only 20 to 30 graduates per year in the late 18 th century.Of course, it should be noticed that aristocratic families were sending their sons for education abroad.
booksellers, all from Zagreb, and four from other towns in the Habsburg Monarchy.In addition to the list of books there is some text in this catalogue, referring to different discounts for books marked in the catalogue with two symbols (asterisk and cross) and advertising that buyers can also order any other book through this bookshop, unless it is forbidden.Naturally, this text is written in German language and printed in Gothic typeface.The catalogue lists around 2,200 books (or 2,500 according to Stipčević, 2005: 108), which are in most cases very well described.This stock is impressive, especially when compared with an estimate given by Eva Verona (1955-57: 32) that a newly established Zagreb Academy had a library with about 7,000 volumes.It could be assumed that Novosel and other booksellers did not keep in stock all the books listed in their catalogues, but were prepared to order particular titles from their suppliers abroad.
Both Klaić (1922) and Stipčević (2005) compliment the organization of this catalogue in 34 sections, but they do not mention the hierarchical structure in which a subject category, for example Law, is divided into four narrower subject groups (this is not visible on the index page, where all categories appear as equal).This structure is very similar to the classification system of seven classes and 30+ subclasses suggested by Michael Denis, a librarian at the Maria Theresia Academy in Vienna, and prescribed for university libraries in Austria (Verona 1955-57: 19) only a few years before Novosel's catalogue was published.
Also coming from Antun Novosel's bookshop is the catalogue published in 1800 or 1801, reprinted and precisely analysed by Tomić (2008).It is a much more modest edition with 32 pages (single sheet of paper), containing only 298 titles of books and 30 maps.Tomić (2008) provides many details about this catalogue and explains that it is probably one of the smaller catalogues that Novosel was publishing between major ones and in which he advertised the publications from his own print-shop and new acquisitions.Suffice to say here that in this catalogue there are quite a few books in Croatian language, printed in Novosel's and in other Croatian print-shops and there is some text in Croatian, advertising new editions and explaining buying options.The items are described equally thoroughly as in the catalogue of 1796, but the structure of catalogue is very simple, consisting of only four sections, three of which are not subject categories but types of editions.
The last catalogue from Novosel's bookshop was published in 1801.It was known to and mentioned by other authors (for example Stipčević 2005).This is another one of the catalogues bound together and kept at the NSK in Zagreb.It lists around 3,200 items (4,000 according to Stipčević 2005: 108) in 11 sections and on 192 numbered pages, with the index of sections and their page numbers.The first section is the longest (pages 1-163) and has no title.Within this section, items are organised in neat alphabetical order, well marked with a capital letter at the beginning of each letter of the alphabet.The first section contains books from all subject fields, while the other ten sections are either devoted to one field only, such as prayer books, science, gardening, etc. or are excerpts from the catalogue of new editions.Difference between the organisation of this catalogue and the one published five years earlier could be a result of new trends in Europe, as by this time the new Enlightenment perception of total knowledge and its alphabetical organisation (applied in Encyclopaedia) prevailed.According to Andy White ( 2008), the new alphabetical system caused breaking down the hierarchies of knowledge and this is partially reflected in this catalogue.
The catalogues from Franjo Rudolf's bookshop (1803-1832).The catalogue of old books published by Franjo Rudolf in 1812 was mentioned by Klaić (1922) and Stipčević (2005) as not being the first from this bookshop, but the location of previous ones is not known.Rudolf was a bookseller and bookbinder who did not have his own printshop and was selling the publications of other Croatian and many foreign printers, as well as old books.Selling second-hand books was a normal part of the bookselling business at the time, but none of the Croatian book history writers dedicated any attention to it.Rudolf's catalogue does not offer any information that could confirm these books were second-hand, so without further research into archival documents we do not know how or from where these books came into his stock.
The catalogue from 1812 appears to be well organised, containing 84 numbered pages and listing numbered items.Even though the last item in the catalogue carries no.723, the catalogue lists only 674 items as one block of 47 items was omitted (numbers 426-473) and there are a few places where some numbers were skipped or where the same number was printed twice.Some of these incidents may have been printing errors but there could have also been other reasons for taking some books out of the sales catalogue at the last moment, while the printing techniques did not allow rearranging the order of numbers.This catalogue is divided into 3 sections: the first with no title containing about 100 items, the second titled Theater Stücke containing nearly 500 items and the third titled Jüristische Bücher, also containing about 100 items.The middle section starts with classical dramas but then continues to list books from other subject fields, which explains why this section is much richer than the other two.
The catalogue rarely indicates the year of publication except in several cases listed in the second chapter 5 and some of those books were printed 80 years prior to the time of the catalogue.This catalogue was probably compiled of several alphabetical lists of books, as the alphabetical order of authors and/or titles is repeated a few times within each section.A much more detailed analysis of all listed items would be needed in order to establish if this merger happened when the books were handed over from the previous owner or the repeated alphabetical order is following some subject classification scheme.If we think of this inconsistent alphabetical order together with errors in numbers and letters (particularly noticeable in French titles) and the insufficient classification, it gives us an idea of how difficult it must have been for a bookseller to prepare a catalogue.
The second catalogue published by Franjo Rudolf is the one that Stipčević (2005: 110) mentioned as being published in 1822, although it was published sine anno. 6This is an extensive catalogue containing about 2,800 items on 110 pages, but neither the items nor the pages are numbered.As mentioned earlier, this is the only one of the eight Zagreb catalogues printed in octavo with the index of books arranged in two columns on a page.It has some text in German language, advertising Rudolf's bookbinding work and also cosmetic and similar products that can be bought at the shop.
Although the title of this catalogue does not specifically mention old books, some of the listed items were 10 years old at the time of the catalogue publication, which could define Rudolf as an antiquarian bookseller, rather than or as well as a secondhand bookseller.The organisation of this catalogue in 29 sections is not hierarchical, in fact it mixes different criteria: some of the sections are subject fields (for example Chemische und Medizinische), while the others are language categories (for example Ungarische Bücher).In addition, language categories of different levels appear in the catalogue as equal (for example Französische Bücher and Französische Gebethbücher).
Although unusual, the reason for this structure could be the size and structure of Rudolf's stock and adjusting the catalogue to the needs of a particular collection was obviously practiced at the time even in the Zagreb Academy library (Verona 1955-57: 29).However, there was something else wrong with Rudolf's classification: the largest chapter, Theologische Werke containing about 500 items, lists books from various disciplines, from history to mineralogy, which does not resemble any known classification scheme.In the context of this research Rudolf's catalogue of 1822 is bearing a particular importance as it is the only one with separate sections for French books.

The catalogues from Franjo Župan's bookshop (1808-1847).
A catalogue published by Franjo Župan in 1814 is a thin booklet of only 32 pages and it is found today at the NSK in Zagreb, bound with other catalogues mentioned earlier.When Klaić (1922) mentioned Župan's catalogues he claimed that the one from 1814 was lost, which is unusual as it seems that it had been bound together with other catalogues much before Klaić researched them.Literature leads us to believe that Župan did not have a print-shop prior to 1826 (Stipčević 2005, Maruševski 1975) so it remains unclear how he was publishing catalogues with Verlagswerke section, as the same literature did not define him as an independent publisher who would commission work from the print-shops of other owners.In addition, Stipčević listed five of Župan's catalogues (2005: 457) but did not locate them and only three of those can be found today at the National and University Library. 6 Handwritten note saying 1822 can be found on the title page of the original.
The catalogue from 1814 does not contain any text; it simply lists 334 long unnumbered titles divided into two sections: Verlagswerke and Commissionbücher.Each section was obviously printed on a separate sheet of paper.Within each section items are arranged in alphabetical order, but under the letter R a group of books appear with the subtitle Romane und Comödie and they follow their own alphabet.In this catalogue we sometimes find German titles printed in Latin, not in Gothic typeface.
Another one of Župan's catalogues, bound with other catalogues and kept at the NSK in Zagreb, was published probably in 1817 or later.It lists 151 books commissioned from the bookseller R. A. Hartleben from Pesht, today's Budapest.It was originally a small booklet (printed on a single sheet of paper) and it is the smallest catalogue in this research.All the books are listed in one section in alphabetical order, although, on the last two pages divided with a horizontal line from the rest of titles, this order starts from the beginning.
Župan's catalogue from 1823 is very similar to the one from 1814.It also has 32 pages, printed on two sheets of paper, which is even more obvious here as the print on the second sheet is slightly different.Its 430 titles are divided into two sections: Verlagswerke and Commissionbücher and listed in alphabetical order within each section.Similarly as in the catalogue from 1814, under the letter G there is a group Geschichte and under the letter R there is a group Romane und Comödie in both sections.This catalogue, although not having any text, carries an important note on the title page about the prices indicated in converted coins.

Analysis of trade in French books
The researched catalogues listed 245 French books (Table 1), which is more than expected at the beginning of this research based on the literature review.However, French titles represent only 0.9% to 3% of the stock of each bookseller, with the exception of Župan's (1817?) catalogue of books newly commissioned from Budapest, where they represented 7%.Moreover, when titles of books were compared, it was established that about 40% of French titles advertised in Novosel's catalogue published in 1801 had been for sale since 1796 (Table 2).It must be said that these were almost certainly not just the same titles, but the same books. 7In other words, Novosel's bookshop was offering 110 8 new French titles over the period of those 5 years.
In Franjo Rudolf's bookshop the overlapping of catalogues occurred much less often (8%), but the time distance between his two catalogues was 10 years.Rudolf was therefore offering 70 new titles in those 10 years.Very few French books were found 7 In most cases the year and/or the place of publishing is the same.8 From a total of 152 titles subtract: 1 doubled, probably by mistake (Novosel 1801); 33 more as they were repeated in two bigger catalogues; 4 more as 2 titles appeared in all 3 catalogues, and 4 more because they appeared in two latter catalogues. in Župan's catalogues so percentage might be irrelevant, but it should be noted that he also offered 15 new titles over the period of 9 years.As shown in Table 2 all three bookshops were offering 195 different French books over a period of 27 years.This small number can still be seen as impressive considering the circumstances in Zagreb at the time and the fact that even the books in other, more popular languages, were sold over a long period.Even more impressive is the variety of subjects that the three booksellers were offering (Figures 1-3) 9 .1982).Obviously, Voltaire's books were advertised in all three of Novosel's catalogues even though they were forbidden (Stipčević 2005).It is known that the bishop of Zagreb specially appreciated Voltaire's work and owned a collection (Puškadija Ribkin 2007).Particularly noticeable in Novosel's offer is the high representation of religious literature, even in French language.This is not surprising considering the influence of the Catholic Church in Croatia at the time and especially considering who the real owner of the bookshop was.However, Figures 4  and 5 show that the stock in the bookshop changed in 5 years.In comparison with the one from 1796, the 1801 catalogue included a large group of prayer books, representing 50% of all French titles, and it also included music and a little more literature, while listing fewer titles from the military and education fields.Was this a general trend or could this already be the result of the changed policy since Antun Novosel's death?In comparison with Novosel, Rudolf was offering fewer subject groups in both catalogues.
Although religion was well represented, in 1812 Rudolf was also providing for those interested in language, education and particularly science, which Novosel seemed to have neglected.
Ten years later Rudolf decreased his offer in religion and even language and science, but he expanded in literature.From the authors and titles represented in Rudolf's stock in 1822 it could be concluded that he provided for the readers who preferred so-called educational (Fenelon, Campe, La Fontaine) and other novels (Mme de Genlis).Župan's stock of French books was too small to be well presented graphically, but as Figure 3 shows he was offering even fewer subject groups.Literature was most represented, particularly the romantic novels of Mme Cottin.
The information that catalogues provided about the place of publication was not complete, but it can be noticed in all three bookshops that the majority of books were printed in Vienna and many of them in the Trattner's print-shop.However, many other places from all over Europe are also listed, such as Amsterdam, Avignon, Basel, Bern, Brussels, Dresden, Geneva, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Le Hague, Lyon, London, Nice, Nurnberg, Ulm, Paris, Turin, Trieste and Pesht.A more precise analysis was not possible as information in some catalogues is less complete than in others.A slight tendency of purchasing French books from France and Italy, rather than from German cities, can be noticed in Novosel's 1801 catalogue, while older books from Rudolf's 1812 catalogue were printed mostly in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Conclusion
From the presented analysis it can be concluded that there must have been a market for French books in Zagreb, as between 1808 and 1825 there were three bookshops selling them.It seems that none of them had French titles only for the sake of diversity, as they had a stock of a significant value.Selling French books must have been a risky business, more so in financial way than political, as there is no evidence that the booksellers had any consequences from selling books that spread very liberal ideas.
In spite of having a very limited market and a very slow return on investment, it seems possible that the three researched booksellers divided their market among them as each specialised in particular subjects.Analysed catalogues proved to be a good resource for this and possible future researches.

Figure 1 :Figure 2 :
Figure 1: Representation of French titles in subject groups in all three of Novosel's catalogues

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Representation of subject groups in Novosel's 1796 catalogue

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Representation of subject groups in Rudolf's 1812 catalogue

Table 1 :
Overview of catalogues * Published sine anno.