Translated by a Penniless Parisian Widow
HUME, David, [and Octavie BELOT, translator].
Histoire de la maison de Tudor sur le trône d’Angleterre … traduit de l’anglois par Madame B***. Amsterdam [i.e. Paris], 1763.
Six volumes, 12mo; a few very slight spots; an excellent set in contemporary French mottled calf, spines richly gilt with gilt red morocco labels, edges stained red, marbled endpapers, red ribbon page-markers; bookplate of Robert J. Hayhurst to upper pastedown of vol.'I.
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Histoire de la maison de Tudor sur le trône d’Angleterre … traduit de l’anglois par Madame B***.
A very fine set of the first French edition of Hume’s history of Tudor England, translated by the Parisian widow Octavie Belot (1719–1805, née Guichard), who supported herself with income from her translations, and through her work developed a friendship with Hume.
Having set out the objectives of the historian ‘to be true & impartial … next to be interesting’ (The Letters of David Hume (1932) I, p. 209) and following the success of his history of England under the Stuarts (1754–6), Hume published his History of England under the House of Tudor in 1759 for an advance payment of £700, noting that ‘it is properly at that Period modern History commences’ (ibid. I, p. 249). The history was soon after translated by Octavie Belot, a Parisian widow who supported herself on English translations from the death of her first husband until her marriage to Jean-Baptiste-François du Rey de Meynières in 1765. Belot corresponded with Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, and Buffon, and she translated Sarah Fielding’s Ophelia and Johnson’s Rasselas into French. Hume thought highly of her work, and corresponded with her about his corrected proof sheets for the work, suggesting in an autograph letter of 1763 that they continue their friendship even after the publication of the work (see Christie’s, 12 July 2023, lot 70).
Accompanied by a two-volume quarto edition of the same year, the present edition came after abbé Prevost’s translation Histoire de la maison de Stuart (1760) and was followed in turn by Belot’s Histoire de la maison de Plantagenet (1765); the three were subsequently issued together with cancel titles as Histoire d’Angleterre.
Library Hub records sets only at NLS, Leeds, and King’s College Cambridge (three volumes only, incomplete, from the Keynes collection).
Quérard IV, p. 165.