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Dictionnaire des femmes libraires en France (1470-1870). By Romeo Arbour. Geneva, Switzerland: Librairie Droz, 2003. 750 pp. [euro]83,23. ISBN 2-600-00827-6.
This is largely a book about widows not only before the French Revolution, when women were limited to taking over a deceased husband's business, but often after as well. The brief (nineteen pages) but useful introduction paints a poignant picture of aged women requesting licenses to open bookstores only because they had no other means of support. Before and after the Revolution, too, it seems that many women booksellers barely made a living.
Among other things, these facts tinge a rather dry and summary…