Dictionnaire de Trévoux

The Dictionnaire de Trévoux, as the Dictionnaire universel françois et latin was unofficially and then officially nicknamed because of its publication in the town of Trévoux (near Lyon, France), appeared in several editions from 1704 to 1771.[1] Throughout the 18th century, it was widely assumed to be the directed by Jesuits, a supposition supported by at least some modern scholars.[2]

The first edition (1704) of the Dictionnaire de Trévoux was close to being a reprint of the 1701 edition of Antoine Furetière´s Dictionnaire universel (1690), with a small number of revisions and added articles.[3] From its much expanded second edition (1721) onward, the Dictionnaire de Trévoux came to be respected and widely used, becoming an important source for Ephraim Chambers´ Cyclopaedia (1728) and the Encyclopédie (1751–72) among other works.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ On the final edition see Arnold Miller, "The Last Edition of the Dictionnaire de Trévoux," in Notable Encyclopedias of the Late Eighteenth Century, ed. Frank A. Kafker (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1994), 5-50.
  2. ^ See especially Marie Leca-Tsiomis, Ecrire l`Encyclopédie: Diderot: de l`usage des dictionnaires à la grammaire philosophique (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2001).
  3. ^ Dorotea Behnke, Furetière und Trévoux: Eine Untersuchung zum Verhältnis der beiden Wörterbuchserien (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1996).
  4. ^ On the use of the Trévoux by the Cyclopaedia and the Encyclopédie see Leca-Tsiomis, Ecrire l'Encyclopédie.