For the following blogpost, I’ve decided to focus on the history of my object, the 1937 French Missal in terms of its origins and make. Reading The Hare with the Amber Eyes  has had a profound effect on my research with my object. For one, I know have a strong sense of place and how place factors into the function and importance of the object. While reading De Waal’s account of his family Netsuke, I found myself aching to go to Paris to do on the ground research about the history of my great grandmother’s prayerbook, published in 1937. Reading how De Waal couldn’t properly do his research on the Netsuke without seeing them in their original home, whether in Paris, Vienna or Tokyo, taught me the importance of seeing the object in its original form, if you will. I’ve been so interested to know more about the publisher of the missal, where it would be sold, etc.  Paris is key to my story too of the 1937 French missal and I want to find out about its origins. My search into the publisher and artist of the engravings began with an address.  On the second page of the book reads the name of the publisher, P. Lethielleux, 10 Rue Cassette, Paris. The address is printed several times on the first few pages and last few pages of the book.

Google Street view of Rue Cassette

A quick Google Maps search allowed me to see the location of the former publisher, P. Lethielleux. Located in the heart of Saint-Germain in Paris, 10 Rue Cassette now belongs to the posh Hôtel Abbaye. Starting with place seemed most appropriate so I decided to dig deeper. Researching P. Lethielleux online only led me to several Google Books entries which attribute the publisher to hundreds and hundreds of books from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. The last book I can find online attributed to the P. Lethielleux is 1964. The books range from children’s missals to theological collections to a 1929 publication of Ben-Hur.

10 rue Cassette, Paris.

My next thought, maybe I’m typing in the address wrong if the hotel keeps popping up. My next mission was to find out what year the hotel was built. No luck on their English website or online. There’s a fun tool on the hotel’s website which allows you to call the hotel for free through an online service. So, I typed in my cell number and was promptly connected to the hotel. The gentleman picks up the phone in French and I freeze, it’s been a while that I’ve practiced my French so I shudder and  ask if he speak’s English. He says yes and I ask him when the hotel was founded. He had trouble hearing me but finally understands and tells me, in the early 1970s. This makes sense because the last trace I can find of P. Lethielleux is a 1964. I hang up and wonder why the receptionist sounded so odd. Then I realized it was about 2am French time, I felt terrible. Again, I wish I could be in Paris. Alas.

Now I have a location of the publisher but am still missing a history of the publisher, P. Lethielleux. After an exhausting Google and Wikipedia search, all I can find is different online merchants selling antique books, which include various missals and theological books. I cannot find anything on the history of the publisher. This is frustrating to me because there are extensive online instances of mentioning P. Lethielleux in terms of attributing books to the publisher, but alas, no history. So, I set my Google to French in the hopes that some history about the publisher would show up on a French website. My French is lacking, but I can make my way through the bare minimum. I search and search and….nothing. Only this time I’m directed to French booksellers selling Lethielleux’s books. What I can gather from the exhaustive online searching is that Lethielleux published hundreds and hundreds of books. There are several websites documenting these published books with accompanied pictures of little books that look just like my great- grandmother’s. What is lacking is a history.

 As a History major, I was never trained on how to research antique books. I feel like I’m grasping at a history–wanting some history of a book publisher– that’s not accessible to me right now. I wish I could be like Edmund de Wall and find some Catholic historian in Paris who could help me. I’m wondering if P. Lethielleux was also responsible for the engravings or if he just acted as a publisher.  Where was the missal sold? And how common was this book? From my preliminary research, it seems like something very common yet I feel a true connection to the missal in a way to learn more about my great-grandmother. Next week I want to focus more on finding information about the illustrator and the publisher, but I don’t know where to start.