Upcoming Book Translations

Upcoming Book Translations

The following book translations from French to English are coming out this Winter, under the Evidentia Classics imprint, in both print and eBook versions.

Beaumont, Marie: Slavery in the United States (see a detail from the cover design in the feature image at the top of this blog)
Translated by George Tombs

Gustave de Beaumont (1802-1866) is best known as the companion of Alexis de Tocqueville during their travels in 1831-32, exploring democracy in America. But the Comte de Beaumont was a magistrate, prison reformer and original thinker in his own right. In Marie, he denounces the institution of slavery in Jacksonian America, demonstrating how racism splits society in two. This is also a novel about the condition of women. Marie, to all appearances a young white woman, hopes to marry Ludovic. But when it turns out she has some black blood, her prospects are suddenly ruined, and Ludovic dreads the judgment of public opinion more than he loves her. Combining fiction and fact, this romantic novel about forbidden love and deeply-ingrained racial prejudice is accompanied by Beaumont’s critical observations of New York race riots in 1834, the social and economic status of black Americans at the time and the abolitionist movement.

Lafitau and Condorcet are among the authors newly translated in the Evidentia Classics series

Lafitau, The Medicinal Properties of American Ginseng
Translated by George Tombs

In 1718, the French Jesuit Joseph-François Lafitau, a missionary and ethnographer at Sault Saint-Louis (modern-day Kahnawake) near Montreal, was the first European to make a detailed scientific description of American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius). In this ground-breaking work, Lafitau notes that the Iroquois use ginseng to promote bodily vigour, combat fever and improve digestion. He also pays tribute to the Aboriginal medical paradigm, based on their rigorous investigations and analysis. “The Iroquois,” he writes, “have by necessity become medicine men and herbalists: they study all the plants of the forest with curiosity, noting the medicinal properties of each variety. And while they lack a grounding in a well-reasoned scientific discipline, they nonetheless have discovered many natural remedies for their ills.”

Condorcet, Reflections on Black Slavery
Translated by George Tombs

In this stunning work from 1788 (2nd edition), Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet speaks directly to readers today about the dignity and rights of black slaves held in servitude in the French colonies. He denounces the institution of slavery for tearing men, women and children from their families, depriving them of an education, and forcing them into cruel and degrading conditions. To provide context for his work on slavery, this edition includes a new translation of Condorcet’s Essay on the Influence of the American Revolution in Europe (1786), and a series of documents from 1789 to 1791 relating to the abolitionist society founded by Condorcet, the Société des Amis des Noirs (Society of Friends of Black People).  Condorcet is remembered today as a philosopher, mathematician and revolutionary defender of liberty and human rights. He died in 1794, a victim of the French Reign of Terror.

 

The Blinding Sea at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès

October 14, 2022

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

October 14, 2022

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