The Clark owns fourteen hybrid (print-manuscript) volumes compiled by the French bibliophile François-Louis Jamet (1710–1778), dating primarily from the 1750s through 1770s. Acquired only a few years ago, this collection of hybrid books interrogates the traditional division between print and manuscript: many are essentially sammelbande (volumes comprising multiple, separately issued texts bound together) assembled by Jamet, who combined multiple printed books, marginalia, interleaved manuscripts, and cut-and-pasted prints to create his textual assemblages. Jamet was a voracious book collector and heavy annotator. His copy of Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique (1765), for instance, bears copious manuscript notes that essentially add new entries to the volume, thus building upon and enhancing one of the Enlightenment’s literary masterpieces.

Recueil de pièces par Jamet le Jeune
France, 1770s

Voltaire
Dictionnaire philosophique
1765