China in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (18th-19th centuries). New Approaches to a Famous and Little-known Publishing Phenomenon

Among the great vehicles of European representation were the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1702-1776) and Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s Description de la Chine (1735). Through multiple translations and the scientific value of their ever-updated contents, these works became indispensable sources for the construction of “French-style” knowledge of China. Pierre Antoine Fabre and Sabina Pavone show how the Lettres édifiantes functioned as a bridge between religious edification and ethnographic curiosity, transforming missionary letters into a powerful European publishing enterprise that shaped public perceptions of China. Virgile Pinot had already underscored the radical editorial rewriting carried out in Paris before their publication; new research now continues to reveal why this enterprise was so successful, showing how a European readership – both Catholic and Protestant – was hungry for travel accounts, cultural taxonomies, and marvels of nature and politics from afar.