Hocquet Caritat
| Company type | Bookseller and publisher |
|---|---|
| Industry | Bookselling, Publishing, Library services |
| Founded | Late 18th century |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
| Products | Books, subscription library services, reading room access |
Louis Alexis Hocquet de Caritat was a bookseller and publisher originally from France who conducted his business in New York toward the end of the 18th century and into the early 19th century. In 1802, he managed a subscription library and reading room situated at the "City-Hotel, Fenelon's Head, Broad-Way." Caritat served as the official U.S. distributor for Minerva Press titles, offering an inventory of approximately 30,000 volumes that included both English and French editions, as well as occasional non-literary goods like "sparkling white champaign wine."
An admirer from that era expressed in 1803:
I would rank Caritat’s bust alongside those of Horace’s Sosii and Quintillian’s Centryphon. When I faced the bleak shadow of poverty in New York, he was my sole confidant. His intellect was refined through literature; he possessed the rare ability to distinguish quality books from inferior ones, a skill lacking in many modern librarians. Yet his motto was place aux dames, and indeed all New York’s women proclaimed Mr. Caritat’s library delightful. Its shelves barely held the weight of Female Frailty, The Posthumous Daughter, and The Cavern of Woe; they needed support for The Cottage-on-the-Moor, The House of Tynian, and The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne; or creaked under editions of The Devil in Love, More Ghosts, and Rinaldo Rinaldini. Novels were eagerly sought by readers young and old alike—from innocent maidens to seasoned matrons.
See also
Further reading
- H Caritat's Literary Room. Morning Chronicle; August 6, 1803
- Caritat, editor. Bibliothèque américaine: mémoires sur l'agriculture, commerce, manufactures, moeurs et usages de l'Amérique; analyse des ouvrages scientifiques et extraits des journaux américains, Paris, 1807. Google books
Publications issued by Caritat
- John Davis. The original letters of Ferdinand and Elisabeth. 1798
- Charles Brockden Brown. Wieland; or The transformation. An American tale. New York: T. & J. Swords for H. Caritat, 1798
- François René Jean, Baron de Pommereul. Campaign of General Buonaparte in Italy during the fourth and fifth years of the French republic. 1798
- Charles Brockden Brown. Ormond; or, the Secret Witness. New York: G. Forman for H. Caritat, 1799.
- Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Beauties of the Studies of nature: selected from Saint Pierre's works. New York: Re-printed for H. Caritat by M.L. & W.A. Davis, 1799.
- Johann Georg Zimmermann. Essay on national pride; translated by Samuel H. Wilcocke. New York: M.L. & W.A. Davis for H. Caritat, 1799.
- Thomas Morton. Speed the plough: a comedy in five acts. New York: re-printed by M.L. & W.A. Davis for H. Caritat, no. 153 Broad-way, 1800.
- M.G. Lewis. The East Indian: a comedy in five acts. New York: re-printed by M.L. & W.A. Davis for H. Caritat, no. 153 Broad-Way, 1800.
- Helen Maria Williams. The political and confidential correspondence of Lewis XVI with observations on each letter, 1803
- Catalogs
- The feast of reason and the flow of the soul: explanatory catalogue of H. Caritat's general & increasing circulating library, 1799
- Catalogue des livres francais chez H. Caritat, libraire et bibliothécaire, Broad-Way no. 157, 1799
About Caritat
- George Gates Raddin. Early New York Fiction Library: A Catalogue of Fiction Available at H. Caritat's Circulating Library, No. 1 City Hotel, Broadway, New York, 1804. New York: Wilson, 1940.
- George Gates Raddin. Hocquet Caritat and the Literary Environment of Early New York (Dover, N.J., 1953)
- Leroy Elwood Kimball. "A Narrative on Hocquet Caritat." Colophon, 1934