Pierre Des Maizeaux and the (Huguenot) business of translation in the early eighteenth century

Pierre Des Maizeaux (1673–1745), a Huguenot refugee who arrived in London in 1699, was at the centre of a network of scholars, journalists, translators and booksellers linking England, France and the Netherlands. This chapter, using his passive correspondence conserved at the British Library, first surveys the role of this network in journalism and translation and then analyses – using the letters sent by Charles de La Motte, ‘correcteur d’imprimerie’ in Amsterdam – Des Maizeaux’s publication of the French translation of the works of William Chillingworth, champion of a more tolerant Christianity. This highlights their political aims, the role played by the different actors (translators, intermediaries, printers and booksellers) and the commercial and material constraints involved in such a publication.