Léon de Rosny
De l’Orient à l’Amérique
to be published November 2014.
Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 500 pages, quadrichromie.
The first holder, in 1868, of a chair in Japanese, speciallycreated for him at the Ecole impériale des langues orientales,
Paris (France), Léon de Rosny (1837-1914) is the author of agood many Japanese-language handbooks and textbooks, thefirst translator of Japanese poetry into French, let alone histranslations of Chinese poetry. When he was only 17 (1854), young Rosny managed toconvince the chairman of the Imprimerie Impériale de France to hire him as a special advisor
for engraving Japanese kata kana type faces and fonts. In 1862, he was appointed as official
interpreter for the first Japanese mission in France, and he stayed with the Japanese officials
all over Europe as far as St Petersbourg !
He played an important part in the philological study of ancientAmerican civilizations and deciphered several unexplained parts of theParis Maya codex. The co-founder, with Claude Bernard, of the Sociétéd’ethnographie, (1860) and founder of the Société orientale et américaine(1858), Léon de Rosny is a many-sided character, who took up manifold
scientific challenges as from 1860 till the end of the century. This scholar
definitely was one of a kind.
His name and work are remembered by scholars and academics. Suchscience or patrimonial institutions as the Bibliothèque nationale deFrance, the Collège de France, the Musée Guimet, the Institut de France
and the Lille City Library (France) [who received (1909) a donation of1000 books (Japanese and Chinese) from Rosny’s own library], open
their stacks to the many facets of his work.

The Rosny library collection
at the Lille City Library(France)

Nevertheless, such varied work, as well as the interest and controversies it very often
aroused, deserves being specifically introduced to a wider audience, as long as the latter
finds an interest in the evolution of ideas and social sciences, from ethnology to linguistics.
Though Rosny’s will ensured that all his papers should beburnt – and so did his wife-, his memory is still alive among
the fourth generation of his direct descendants, who still
own many documents related to the scholar’s life and work,
such as paintings, photos, rare books, albums, memoiresand letters.

La Civilisation japonaise, 1883

On the eve of the centenary of his death, aware as they are of the scope and, on many topics,of the innovative value of his work, some of his direct relatives decided to bring about therevival of a trend of relevance for both his work and the learned man that their scholar of agreat-grand-father had been during the second half of the XIXth century.
So they decided to edit and publish a book which would appeal toboth scholars or keen amateurs and arouse them to delve into Rosny’sresearch world, but would also involve institutions in order tohighlight their patrimony. Many illustrations, some of them neverdisclosed before, result into a very lively book, sometimes a little
eccentric indeed, as was its father figure, an authentic and rigorous
work, with limited scientific bearing though, assuredly quite rich but
not exhaustive. Its ambition is to show the diversity of Rosny’scharacter, without any hagiographic drift.
The wide spectrum Rosny’s scientific endeavour covered —ethnography, japonology, philology, orientalism, americanism,
Revue américaine et orientale,
epistemology, botany, oriental religions—, as well as the many
1879
personalities he was in contact with (in particular Fukuzawa Yukichi
when he was only 25, Philip von Siebold, Johan Hoffmann, Stanislas Julien, AugusteLesouëf, Claude Bernard, Paul Broca, Brasseur de Bourbourg …) made it necessary to devise
such editorial work and make a book out of it.
The Association Léon de Rosny aims at fostering and promoting all actions likely to develop
and spread the knowledge of Rosny’s work among scientists as well as in the public. Itexpects this book not to remain simply a token of family memory,which would no doubt be too narrow a grave for this amazing characterand scientific personality.
The authors are Bénédicte Fabre-Muller, Pierre Leboulleux and Philippe
Rothstein, great-grand-children of Léon de Rosny.
This editing and publishing project is fostered by :Patrick Beillevaire, Research Director at C.N.R.S, Paris.
André Burguière, Historian.
François Macé, Professor at INALCO, Paris.
Hideichi Matsubara; Professor at Keio university, Tokyo.
Jean-Noël Robert, Professor at Collège de France.

If you want to order - free of charge - and receive by mail …
- The complete bibliography (50 pages),- A digest (12 pages) of the 500 page book.
… Bénédicte Fabre-Muller leoduquesne@orange.fr

Le Cours de japonais, 1863