 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(January 2024) |
Alfred-Henry-Armand Mame (b. at Tours, 17 August 1811; d. at Tours, 12 April 1893) was a French printer and publisher.
The founder of the Mame firm, Charles Mame, printed two newspapers at Angers in the last quarter of the eighteenth century; General Hoche had at one time hoped to marry his daughter. His eldest son, bookseller and publisher in Paris, under the First Empire, edited Chateaubriand's famous opuscule, "Buonaparte et les Bourbons", also Madame de Staël's works; and the persecutions directed against these books by the Napoleonic police caused the financial ruin of the editor. But the third son, Amand Mame, came to Tours and founded there a firm which, under the management of Alfred Mame, son of Amand, was destined to become very important.
Paul Mame (1833–1903), a son of Alfred, was the head of the firm until 1900.
After having edited, together with his cousin Ernest Mame, from 1833 to 1845, some classics and a few devotional books, Alfred conceived and carried out, for the first time, the idea of uniting in the same publishing house, a certain number of workshops, grouping all the industries connected with the making of books: printing, binding, selling, and forwarding. By analogy with the great ironworks of Le Creusot, the Mame firm has been called the literary "Creusot".
Mame was also one of the principal owners of the paper-mills of La Haye-Descartes; and it could thus be said that a book, from the time when the rags are transformed into paper up to the moment when the final binding is put on, passed through a succession of workers, all of whom were connected with Mame. Daily, as early as 1865, this publishing house brought out from three to four thousand kilograms of books; it employed seven hundred workers within and from four hundred to five hundred outside.
Inspired by the social Catholic ideal, Alfred Mame established for his employees a pension fund for those over sixty, wholly maintained by the firm. He opened schools, which caused him to receive one of the ten thousand francs awards reserved for the "établissements modèles où régnaient au plus haut degré l'harmonie sociale et le bien-être des ouvriers". In 1874 Mame organized a system by which his working-men shared in the profits of the firm.
It put into circulation books of devotion, and published the Bibliothèque de la jeunesse chrétienne. La Touraine was exhibited at the Universal Exhibition of 1855, and was in its day one of the finest of illustrated books. There were the Bible with illustrations from Gustave Doré; Vétault's Charlemagne; Wallon's St. Louis; the Chefs d'oeuvres de la langue française. Quantin, the publisher, calculated that, in 1883, the Mame publishing-house issued yearly six million volumes, of which three million were bound.
At one time he tried but unsuccessfully to enter political life; at the election of 14 Oct., 1877, he presented himself in the first district of Tours as candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, on the conservative side, against Belle, the republican deputy who had founded in Tours the first lay school for girls. Mame was defeated, having 7456 votes, against 12,006 obtained by Belle.
Anatole France was a French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie Française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament".
Émile Adolphe Gustave Verhaeren was a Belgian poet and art critic who wrote in the French language. He was one of the founders of the school of Symbolism and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on six occasions.
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget was a French poet, novelist and critic. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times.
François Edouard Joachim Coppée was a French poet and novelist.
Mayer André Marcel Schwob, known as Marcel Schwob, was a French symbolist writer best known for his short stories and his literary influence on authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, Roberto Bolaño and Patricio Pron. He has been called a "precursor of Surrealism". In addition to over a hundred short stories, he wrote journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays. He was extremely well known and respected during his life and notably befriended a great number of intellectuals and artists of the time.
Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée was a French philosopher.
Alfred Smith Barnes was an American publisher and philanthropist.
Events from the year 1811 in France.
Abel Hermant was a French novelist, playwright, essayist and writer, and member of the Académie française.
David Samuel Nutt was an English book publisher and seller. Operating from various locations in London, Nutt specialized in the sale of imported foreign books, catering to prestigious institutions like the British Museum and private collectors. His firm ventured into publishing in the 1830s, with a focus on foreign market publications, religious and educational texts, antiquarian literature, and scholarly works. In 1851, Nutt formed a partnership with Nicholas Trübner, a German-English publisher.
Cassell is a British book publishing house, founded in 1848 by John Cassell (1817–1865), which became in the 1890s an international publishing group company.
Octave Uzanne was a 19th-century French bibliophile, writer, publisher, and journalist.
Charles Ephrussi was a French art critic, art historian, and art collector. He also was a part-owner and then editor as well as a contributor to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the most important art historical periodical in France.
Alfred William Bennett was a British botanist and publisher. He was best known for his work on the flora of the Swiss Alps, cryptogams, and the Polygalaceae or Milkwort plant family, as well as his years in the publishing industry.
Rivière des Envies is located in Canada, in the province of Quebec, in the Mauricie administrative region, in the Batiscanie. Rivière des Envies course 74 kilometres (46 mi) from the outlet of Lac-de-la-Traverse, located in row St-Joseph, Sainte-Thècle. This lake is fed by the outlet of Lake Aylwin, which in turn is fed by the discharge of Lake Jesuit.
Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Bréville, known by the pen name Job after his initials was a French artist and illustrator.
Étienne-Paul-Victor Monceaux was a 19th-20th-century French historian. A professor at the Collège de France from 1907 to 1937, he was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1912. His major speciality was Christian Latinity in the Roman provinces of North Africa.
Pierre Aristide André Brouillet was a French academic painter specialising in genre painting, portraits and landscapes.
Élise Voïart, (1786-1866) was a writer and translator from Nancy, France, specializing in historical works, fiction and children's books. She held literary salons at her home when she lived near Paris.
Victor-Armand Poirson was a French illustrator and cartoonist.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Alfred-Henri-Amand Mame". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
