News-sheet — November 2011
Revising & updating the complete correspondence of Voltaire — exclusive to EE!
Project launch is dedicated as a digital Festschrift for Paul LeClerc — scholar and librarian.
At launch, we publish 49 new and refreshed Voltaire documents — 19 letters with manuscript images (a total of 37 high-resolution pages); 35 revised letters; 2 new translations; and 12 letters never previously published, including:
- Official order for a royal benefaction to Voltaire by Robert Walpole, 1st earl of Orford, Sir William Yonge, 4th baronet and George Bubb Dodington, Baron Melcombe, 28–31 May 1727
- Voltaire to René Hérault, 19 April 1729
- Voltaire to Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst, 18 October 1729
- Voltaire to Marie Louise Denis, 7 December 1737
- Voltaire to Guillaume Claude de Laleu, 3 December 1754
- Jean Louis Wagnière to Jean Ribotte, 19 May 1784
For more information see the Digital correspondence of Voltaire project pages; or review the Festschrift for Paul LeClerc, which includes two "Dedicatory letters".
Manuscript images
Beginning with the launch of the Digital Voltaire project (under the editorial direction of Professor Nicholas Cronk, Director of the Voltaire Foundation, Oxford) we have developed and are deploying a system for the cataloguing and display of manuscript images, linking high-resolution images of the original manuscripts to the transcribed and edited letters.
Newly revised edition of the letters of André Morellet — exclusive to EE!
Created in collaboration with the editor of the original, standard critical edition, this revision brings together 656 Morellet letters — including 13 not included in that original edition. Newly collated letters include:
- André Morellet to abbé Henri Jean Baptiste Grégoire, 8 January 1795
- André Morellet to Jean François Thurot, 29 January 1796
- André Morellet to Françoise Éléonore Dejean de Manville, comtesse de Sabran, 28 October 1807
For more information, see the André Morellet project pages.
Geographical data mining, modelling and mapping project — 1st stage release
The first stage in this ongoing R&D project presents detailed, geographical information for source locations of some 32,000+ documents. The indexing and display system works, behind the scenes, with comprehensive geographical databases, allowing us to link letters to online mapping systems. Also presented in this update are high-resolution images of largely 18th-century maps at the country level. In coming months, this will be extended to include regional, state/county and city maps, and for major cities like Paris and London, some street-level mapping.
For more information, see the Geographical data mining, modelling and mapping project pages; or go straight to the EE Gazetteer.
New biographies
Through the addition of the digital correspondence of Voltaire and the letters of André Morellet we have added over 120 new people to EE, including:
- Joseph Bonaparte (1768–1844), French diplomat, statesman, monarch
- François Buisson (1753–1814), French bookseller, publisher, newspaper owner
- Adèle Rosalie Collart-Dutilleul, comtesse Mollien (1784–1878), French aristocrat, courtier, government minister's wife
- Sir William Yonge, 4th baronet (c. 1693–1755), English politician
- Marc Auguste Pictet (1752–1825), Swiss geographer, physicist, university professor, politician
Coffee-house
In a major development of the EE Coffee-house, we are introducing Project, Event and Contributor pages. Here academics, archives and institutions working with EE — on new editions of correspondence or on secondary research and development based on the EE corpus — will find a cozy space to list plans, announce meetings and conferences, share information and make contact.
Functionality
- NEW! Search biographical information. We have added the ability to search the full text of correspondents’ biographical notes. E.g. search for family members, acquaintances, schools, societies, occupations, events and relationships.
- NEW! Search and browse locations. We have added the ability to search and browse the EE gazetteer of locations. E.g. search for “England” and find all letters written from there, or narrow the search to “Greater London”, “Westminster” or “Portland Place”.