The image of Swizerland and its booksellers network : Diffusion of Swiss books in the Bohemian Lands at the end of the eighteenth century
Abstract
In the time of Enlightenment, the quantity of Swiss books to be sold and read in Bohemia is quite modest. Nevertheless, Switzerland has got a very positive, precise and generally known image: a land of freedom of speech, of Christian Enlightenment, a land that praises its landscape - newly discovered mountains and a land that gave birth to very famous scientific and literary figures: Haller, Rousseau, Gessner, etc.
This reputation is partly based on the quality of Swiss publishers and booksellers who managed to compete with their French, German and Netherlands'' colleagues in order to provide Czech market with very famous books that we can find nowadays in Swiss editions in the libraries (Encyclopédie of Diderot and D''Alembert, Voltaire, Mercier, etc.). Relations between Prague booksellers and the Societe typographique de Neuchatel are mentioned.