Neil Kenny

Books in Space and Time: Bibliomania and Early Modern Histories of Learning and "Literature" in France

Early modern histories of learning and belles-lettres took authors, works, and (sometimes) editions as their objects. By contrast, bibliomaniacs craved objects that were far more particular: individual copies of books (or else specific manuscripts). My aim is to investigate the relationship between these two apparently disparate forms of early modern interest in the book production of the past: bibliomania and, on the other hand, histories of learning and belles-lettres. Bibliomania began to be identified as a phenomenon in France in the second half of the seventeenth century. It spectacularly inflated the prices of livres rares et curieux on the Paris market throughout the eighteenth century, especially from about 1720, by which time it had also become prominent in England and the Low Countries.1 Isaac Dis-

Philosophical fictions and the French Renaissance

Investigates the relationship between philosophy and fiction in the 16th century, especially in French vernacular writing. The texts under consideration treat one or more branches of learning, including metaphysics and alchemy but also contain an element of fiction.