Stone, Vendryès, and Maze: Humboldt's unfortunate publishers
Autograph letter signed ("Humboldt").
Small 8vo. 3 pp. on bifolium. In French.
€ 2,500.00
Highly interesting letter to an unidentified recipient who appears to have served as an intermediary in a sale or an auction with which Humboldt was concerned. The sale might have been in connection with the death of Humboldt's former publisher John Hurford Stone (1763-1818). As early in 1812 Stone had to file for bankruptcy due to the enormous costs of the publication of Humboldt's monumental "Relation historique", the travelogue and scientific report of his Spanish American expedition. Stone's name is mentioned in a short postscript to the letter: "Everything from before the time of the contract with Vendryès is from M. Stone".
In the letter, Humboldt talks about the potential date of the sale and some objects that are in London: "Concerning the sale, Lannoy thinks that it could take place in the end of July and that the customs information will be sufficient to know what is in London. Since my intervention is only due to my personal interests and since only Mr. Lannoy needs to recognize what is necessary for the good of the creditors, I can only hope that the sale will be effected as quickly as possible. Please send me two lines as soon as your work is entirely finished so that we can meet at M. Lannoy's and arrive at a definite decision about the time of the sale and make the necessary announcements".
John Hurford Stone moved to France in 1792 and saw success as an industrialist. He had to leave France temporarily during the Reign of Terror in 1793/94; upon his return he started a successful publishing house. Following Stone's bankruptcy, the Parisian publisher R. Vendryès, mentioned twice in the letter, briefly took over Humboldt's great project. Vendryès only published the "Atlas gégraphique et historique" as part of to the "Relation historique". The first sentence of the letter probably refers to this publication: "My request with M. Maze was futile; he does not remember the posters published by Vendries [!] but he [Vendryès] could easily inform you about them". Nicolas Maze was the most successful publisher of the "Relation historique": between 1814 and 1826 he published several volumes of Humboldt's ultimately unfinished travelogue.
With collector's note in pencil. Well preserved.
