Sraffa I/141: Correspondence Beween Marguerite Kuczynski And Piero Sraffa

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Robert Vienneau
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A Bad Reproduction Of An Engraving Of Quesnay In Kuczynski And Meek

This folder consists of:

• A 20 Sep. 1965 letter from Marguerite Kuczynski to Piero Sraffa. Sraffa’s handwritten annotation suggests his response is not in the archives.
• Handwritten notes made by Sraffa.
• An 18 Oct. 1965 letter from Marguerite Kuczynski to Piero Sraffa.
• A 25 Nov. 1965 handwritten draft letter from Piero Sraffa to Marguerite Kuczynski.
• An 18 Dec. 1965 letter from Marguerite Kuczynski to Piero Sraffa.
• A typed copy of a 10 Feb. 1966 letter from Piero Sraffa to Marguerite Kuczynski.
• A 26 Feb. 1966 letter from Marguerite Kuczynski to Piero Sraffa.
• A 2 Dec. 1971 letter from Marguerite Kuczynski to E. A. G. Robinson.
• A 9 Mar. 1972 letter from Marguerite Kuczynski to Piero Sraffa. Sraffa’s handwritten annotation suggests his response is not in the archives.
• Notes by Marguerite Kuczynski. Sraffa’s handwritten note says this is a copy, and it starts with page 2. Presumably, the original was enclosed with Kucznski’s December 1965 letter.

This transcription needs checking more than usual. I dropped many accents and have not even attempted to ensure the french makes sense. I believe there are translations from some of the last document in Kucynski and Meek (1974). The letters from Kuczynski are on her personal letterhead. I find this to be part of an exciting story.

Handwritten by Sraffa on upper left:
R. 11 Oct,
Sent copy of B, N. first edition dated 1956-58, but Pt. VI not.-p.

112 Berlin Weissensee, Sept. 20th, 1965
Parkstrasse 94

Pietro Sraffa, Esq.
Trinity College
Cambridge/England

Dear Sir,

A short while ago I published the long-lost "third edition" of Quesnay's Tableau Economique which it been my good fortune to locate. The reproduction is accompanied by a comparison with Mirabeau's more extensive explanation of the Tableau which he made on the basis of Quesnay's "third edition" and which he published in the Sixth Part of his Ami des Hommes. For that comparison, I was obliged to use one of the 1760 editions of the Sixth Part, and references to the Fifth Part of Ami des Hommes also make use of that same edition (1760). For so far, I have not been able to trace the 1759 edition of these two parts which Georges Weulersse, for one, mentions in his Mouvement physiocratique, Paris 1910, vol. I, pp. 69-70, note 7. The context is such that a printer’s error -- putting 1759 for 1760 - seems impossible, and I should consider it most unlikely that Weulersse would have mentioned this early edition had he not been certain that it existed.

In his Bibliography of Economics, 1751-1775, Cambridge 1935, p. 167, Henry Higgs also mentions the year 1759 in connection with the Fifth Part of Ami des Hommes: he lists an edition "Avignon, 1759, issued 1770, 12". Am I right in hoping that owing to your association with the work of Henry Higgs, you might be able to throw light on the sources which establish the date "1759"? And would have the kindness of enabling me to follow up these sources? (The year "1770" I have assumed to be a misprint for 1760.)

Please believe me most grateful for any help which you may be able to give me in the matter of dating Parts Five and Six of Ami des Hommes.

May I add a further query? Henry Higgs mentions (Introduction, p. XV) the work of "M. Daniel Morant who analyzed the contents of 500 private libraries belonging to ... notabilities in the time of Louis XV.". I have not been able to trace the work referred to and beg you to help me find it.

Very truly yours,

Marshall Library, Pryne Collection

LAmi des Hommes

Pt 1-4 "Nouvelle edition, augmentee d'une quatrienne Pourtie et de Sou.." N. P. 1759

Pt. 5-6 N. P. 1760

Pt 6 divided in two parts, the first "Response a la Voierie" the second ("Suite de la VI Partie") the "Tableau Economique avec ses explications" This latter has at the end a whole page of extracts (Fautes a corriger)

112 Berlin Weissensee, Oct 18th, 1965
Parkstrasse 94

Piero Sraffa, Esq.
Trinity College
Cambridge/England

Dear Mr. Sraffa,

Thank you very much indeed for your very detailed answer to my query. I’ve examined the editing of L'Ami des Hommes, 1756-1758, 7 tomes en 6 parties en 2 vol., in 4, in the Munich State Library: the fifth part bears the year 1760. I shall of course follow up your suggestion and write to the Librarian of the Goldsmiths' Library. I shall be at the Bibliotheque nationale shortly, but I am not in great hopes of finding such there, in the particular respect.

As to my reproduction of the "third edition" of the Tableau economique, I am forwarding a copy to you under separate cover. I would appreciate it very such indeed if you would give me your critical remarks on the publication.

Yours sincerely.

25 Nov 65

Dear Mrs Kuczynski

It was most kind of you to send me a copy of your edition of the Tableau econ. It is really a most welcome discovery remarkable really a sensational feat to have found this edition, for which has eluded so many people who have been tried before looking for many years, and I should like to I congratulate on your success discovery and on the excellent presentation and annotation.

I have tried hard therefor to satisfy your request As you ask me for critical remarks and here is this here this is the best, or rather the worst, I can do. It seems a little is [unclear] unfortunate that the facsimile should be an enlargement not be in the original size: the grounds requirement of legibility which you mention could have been satisfied met by reproducing from good full size photograph instead of a microfilm. Also your printer has betrayed you on Page ij, line 9 (cp. Errata) – not 400, nor 500, but [crossed out] 100! (he has also left a humble revealing fingerprint by [crossed out] adopting the wrong font for, 1 instead of I)

I had not a little trouble understanding what it is that you meant in connection with referring to as with the "Korrektur-fragment" until I [crossed out] note 12 and saw that note 12 must be read as part of the text.

This is the best, or rather the worst I can do. If I find any other big and quite small points, when I come to read it more carefully, I shall write again let you know. (I have an idea of proposing writing preparing a notice for for the Economic Journal). By the way, it would have been interesting if you had told the full story of how you came to discover it.

Thank you again

Yours sinc

Gorisch/Erzgebirge, December 18th, 65
as from Berlin Weissensee
Parkstrasse 94

Professor Piero Sraffa
Trinity College
Cambridge/England

Dear Professor Sraffa,

Please do excuse this very belated acknowledgement of your letter of November 25th: the last weeks in Paris and the ensueing week in Berlin have been rather hectic. But we have now come here for a few days of rest (my husband returned from a prolonged stay in Cuba just as I came back from Paris), and one of the very first things I would like to do in this very peaceful place is to thank you for the very kind letter you wrote to me about "my" Quesnay. Please let me say that I appreciated very much indeed the fact that you discovered th error on p.ij of the reproduction! I have been guilty of a twofold negligence there: 1. Thinking that I finally convinced the printers that they were in no way to touch up what seemed to them deplorable irregularities in printing, I did not do sufficient proof-reading the pages reproduced from the films and I discovered the "correction" of what the printers had taken to be an ink-spot too late to have an erratum inserted; 2. in sending you a copy from Paris, the stress of the work there made me forget to point out to you this blotch on the edition.

I have been repeatedly been asked how I came to discover the edition. For quite some time I tried the ordinary hiding places - libraries archives, monasteries etc. in Europe and in Japan; neither this, nor a notice which Jean Maitron published in his "Revue" in 1962, brought forth anything new. I finally followed up a hunch that the striking similarity in the astounding degree of reticence observed by Schelle when he wrote his life of Du Pont de Nemours (1888) and his article on the "edition definitive" (1905) augured, in spite of the many years between the two publications, one common cause: the Du Pont family itself. The enquiry about the whereabouts of the books and papers left by Du Pont de Nemours led at once to the discovery of the "3rd edition". (I have assembled a sort of tableof parallels which you may like to see. That means that I shall have to delay the sending off of this letter until I shall be back in Berlin. If you would let me have the list back after having done with it, I would appreciate it.)

May I, in concluding, thank you for your idea that you may write a notice on the republication of the "3rd edition" for the Economic Journal. I would be most happy about your doing this?

Sincerely yours,

Trin. Coll.
10th February, 1966

Dear Mrs Kuczynski

I must apologize for my delay in replying to your most interesting letter of last December. It reached me in Italy, where I did not have by me the relevant books, and I only returned here after a prolonged vacation.

I found the study of the steps in your argument absolutely fascinating and greatly admired the perspicacity which enabled you to achieve this remarkable success.

I do hope that you will publish the full story as well as presentations in French and English of the newly formed Tableau. It will not only make exciting reading as a piece of detection, but it should inspire others by showing what results can be obtained by bringing a fresh mind to bear on puzzles which had defeated generations of foot-sloggers!

Did you get the answer about the "1759" edition of the 5th Part of l'Ami des hommes?

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

P. S.

P.S. I found that the Economic Journal had already sent to a reviewer your Tableau. But I may have another chance with your next publication.

112 Berlin Weissensee, Febr. 26th, 1966
Parkstrasse 94

Professor Piero Sraffa
Trinity College
Cambridge/England

Dear Professor Sraffa,

I do thank you for the very kind letter which accompanied the notes which I had sent you on the steps taken to find the Tableau. Indeed, your letter encouraged me to write up the material into an article (a Japanese journal had asked me for a contribution dealing with the Tableau).

As to your questions about the 1759 editions of Parts V and VI of L'Ami des Hommes, I have, for the time being, come to the reluctant conclusion that the earliest edition may well be the one published as vol. III of the 1760 4-edition. Of two contradictory statements of Mirabeau's, the one which establishes the date as 1760 was written in 1760 and eight years before the other one. I should have preferred it to be the other way around, of course.

May I say that I am sorry you will not be reviewing my Tableau-edition?

With best wishes

Sincerely yours,

112 Berlin Weissensee, December 2., '71
Parkstrasse 94

Professor E. A. G. Robinson
Secretary, The Royal Economic Society
The Marshall Library
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge

Dear Professor Robinson,

I have just received a first copy of our Tableau-edition. It is beautifully printed and beautifully set up, and the engraving, so kindly furnished by Piero Sraffa, adds such a fine touch to it. I do thank you for all the trouble you have taken with the edition!

Since we are already in the month of December I would like to add the season’s greetings and my very best wishes for the coming Year.

Sincerely yours,

Handwritten in upper left:
R 19 going to Italy for a few weeks
Not yet rec’d book. If on my return, have anything of interest, will write.
Reviews, Economica, U. S. journal hist. of theory. In Italy, G. d. E.

112 Berlin Weissensee, March 9, 1972
Parkstrasse 94

Piero Sraffa, Esq.
Trinity College
Cambridge/England

Dear comrade Sraffa,

I have to-day posted to you the first volume of my German edition of Quesnay's main economic writings. It covers the years 1756 to 1759, trailing a bit into 1760. It should of course have gone to you already about the middle of January but I have been hard pressed for time (and by ill health) and am only now beginning to catch up.

You may be interested in some of the new materials I have used, among them perhaps No. 4, p. 813; No. 10, pp. 814-815; No. 14, p. 816); and I need, of course, not say, how very much interested I would be in any comments you may have in the edition.

A review copy of this volume has of course been sent to the Economic Journal. Perhaps Professor Robinson will have passed it on to Ronald Meek (who is, I suppose, still in England? I have not heard from him since June of last year). If you have any advice as to additional reviews in England, or, for that matter, in Italy where no copies have been sent so far, I would gladly pass on your suggestions to the publishers.

In my work on the second Quesnay-volume I find that I am using the English Tableau edition quite a bit. It is so very useful to have the three Tableaus together (I have complete the first edition" by two "Remarques" pages). And it is such a pleasure to work with such a beautifully printed book. Please, believe in my gratitude for all you have done to give this volume its shape and beauty.

With many good wishes,
Sincerely,

I decided to start from the indications contained in Schelle's Du Pont de Nemours et l'Ecole physiocratique and to disregard, for the time being, the odd period of time which had elapsed between that publication, in 1880, the piece-meal revelations on the Tableau in 1905. I did this because

1. the pattern of reticence was so much the case the same in the two publications that it suggested a cause common to both cases – the Du Pont family’s inordinate insistence on anonymity;
2. the chapter on the descendants of the physiocrat Du Pont suggested that family papers etc. were more likely to be found in the USA than in France, for instance:
3. not only the pattern of reticence was similar: the period at which the Du Ponts themselves came a bit out of their reserve coincided rather closely with the resumed publication, on the part of Schelle, of unknown matter concerning Quesnay and Turgot and, a little latter, with nisecsening anonymity of his acknowledgements to the owners of the Du Pont documents.

I have assembled the more important quotations from the 1888 study on Du Pont:

"Sans la bienveillance que nous a temoignee sa famille, nous aurions meme renomce a achiever notre tache, mais grace a elle, nous avons pu poursuivre nos recherches sans trop do difficiltes et les appuyer sur des documents dune valeur exceptionnelle" (p. 5).

"Bien que ces precieux papiere soient aujourd’hui en Ano-rique, il nous a ete donne d'en consulter les parties les plus interessantes" (p. 5).

"Nous avons ou notament, entre les mains, copie de plus de trois cente lettres que Turgot adresse a (Du Pont) ... Nous n’a-vone pas ou la permission de publier cette correspondence, ... mais nous avons pu citer quelques passages do ces lettres et nous y avons fait de nombreux emprunts" (p. 5 and 6).

"L'un des arridre-petits-fils de Du Pont de Nemours a bien voulu on outre nous fournir d'indications dd detail, ou revir, corriger et completer avec un soin extreme la bibliographie qui toraine ce livre" (p. 6, note 2).

"Nous pourrione aussi signaler in grace bienveillante des lettres de la seule fille d'Irenee (son of the phsiocrat DP de N. - M. K.) qui soit encore vivante; mais nous ne veulone parler due des morte" (p. 395).

Everything rather pointed to America and, I repeat, it is only when I started following the old spoor that I got to the lair.

I admit that I hesitated for some time to follow the spoor to the end. For one thing, I had, in the eyes of such a family, not even the virtue of being an ancestor's biographer. When I finally did take the plunge I discovered that the papers and books that had belonged to the physiocrat Du Pont had passed -- at least sufficiently for my purposes -- out of the family’s immediate control into the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library and had thus become to some extent public property

That is the story. I have in addition jotted down, on a separate page, some of the particular dates, which illustrate my point 3 above.