Disputatio:Aemilius Zola

message: Ubi et quo domino typographus iunior meruit? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:18, 1 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diabolus typographi? 

message: Maybe, maybe not. At least one printed reference calls him that ("a writer named Zola, originally a printer's devil"), but it's in a novel, albeit a realistic one (setting scenes by citing currently living people and their doings, and therefore needing not to stray too far from historical truths to be plausible): Robert Buchanan, "Chapter X: From the Post-Bag," The New Abelard: A Romance, serialized in The Gentleman's Magazine, April 1883, p. 338. Maybe someone with access to details of Zola's life will find out what, if anything, Zola did in relation to the publishing business before he began a career as a writer. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:38, 11 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The French wiki puts him in sales & advertising, not production ("il reste quatre ans au service de publicité chez Hachette où il occupe finalement un emploi équivalent à celui des attachés de presse modernes"), but that was from age 22 to age 26, and printer's devils were often much younger than 22, so what (if anything in publishing) did he do before Hachette hired him? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:47, 11 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: :The only other job I can find in the biography written by his daughter is a two-months stint at the Docks in 1860 (age 20). Lesgles (disputatio) 18:35, 11 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: ::I was the one who was getting impatient about this (see also Disputatio Usoris:IacobusAmor). It appeared to me from the French and English wikis that there was little if any space in Zola's real CV to fit this work in. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:08, 12 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: :::Maybe the category wants to expand to include all devils (or have that be one step higher in the category tree, with the printer's devil being a subcategory of it): according to the OED, a devil can be "one employed by an author or writer to do subordinate parts of his literary work under his direction; a literary 'hack'; and generally one who does work for which another receives the credit or remuneration or both" (s.v. Devil 5.c.). There's little doubt, given the French wiki's job description (and this and other OED definitions not quoted), that Zola was Hachette's devil. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:41, 12 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: ::::If the Latin word "Diabolus" is used in those ways, and you can find enough members to make it worthwhile, you can of course create the categories. But I wouldn't want you to waste your time ... The Latin term Diabolus typographi still needs sourcing. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:51, 12 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::Is it actually even used in any language other than English? See, e.g. this transator's footnote in a French version of Scott' "Two Drovers", "c'est ainsi que l'on désigne en Angleterre les petits garçon d'imprimerie..." As cool a word as it is in English, it might make more sense to use a simpler translation, e.g. "servus typographi", "operarius typographei"... Lesgles (disputatio) 17:03, 13 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
On the original Zola question, just to dot the i's or cross the t's: a fictionalized attack piece in an English magazine c. 1883 (as cited above -- published at the period when Zola was despised in England as a pornographer) does not carry any weight against the real, documented, factual biographies of Zola. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:30, 23 Novembris 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Zola a printer's devil?

message: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, tomus 20. Lipsiae 1909, p. 975-976 (hic in interreti)
thread_title: Fons recensionis mense Februario 2020