How Francis Douce (1757–1834) Annotated the Early French Printed Volumes in his Collection

As an antiquarian at the beginning of the age of professional scholarship, Francis Douce (1737–1834) has enjoyed a mixed reputation, exemplified by Meg Twycross’s account of his influence on beliefs regarding the origins of the Towneley Plays (2015). Widely-read and embedded in a network of like-minded enthusiasts, Douce does not appear to have recorded his insights for publication but he nevertheless participated in what might be considered scholarly exchange. This article pays attention to the annotations that Douce made in the margins of — and on sheets tipped into — French-language books published before 1600. It examines what sort of features attracted Douce’s attention (primarily bibliographical, but also some relating to the content of the books he was reading). It considers where Douce was getting his information about the works he collected and will note instances where Douce revisited and revised his opinions, evaluating the extent to which he was up-to-date with contemporary advances. Where Douce expresses his own opinion, this article examines whether this opinion has been supported by later scholars. In short, what do the annotations tell us about the state of scholarship in the first decades of the nineteenth century?