__NOTOC__ Louis Alexis Hocquet de Caritat was a French-born bookseller and publisher in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He operated a rental library and a reading room located in 1802 at "City-Hotel, Fenelon's Head, Broad-Way." He served as the "authorized distributor of

Minerva Press Minerva Press was a publishing house, noted for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It was established by William Lane (c. 1745–1814) at No 33 Leadenhall Street, Lon ...

books'" in the U. States. He stocked some 30,000 volumes including imported titles in English and French language, and occasionally non-print items such as "sparkling white

champaign Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...

wine." One of Caritat's contemporary admirers wrote in 1803:

I would place the bust of Caritat among those of the Sosii of
Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
, and the Centryphon of
Quintillian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilian ...
. He was my only friend at New-York, when the energies of my mind were depressed by the chilling prospect of poverty. His talents, were not meanly cultivated by letters; he could tell a good book from a bad one, which few modern librarians can do. But place aux dames was his maxim, and all the ladies of New-York declared that the library of Mr. Caritat was charming. Its shelves could scarcely sustain the weight of Female Frailty, the Posthumous Daughter, and the Cavern of Woe; they required the aid of the carpenter to support the burden of the Cottage-on-the-Moor, the House of Tynian, and the Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne; or they groaned under the multiplied editions of the ''Devil in Love'', ''More Ghosts'', and '' Rinaldo Rinaldini''. Novels were called for by the young and the old; from the tender virgin of thirteen, whose little heart went pit-a-pat at the approach of a beau; to the experienced matron of three score, who could not read without spectacles.John Davis
Travels Of Four Years And a Half in the United States Of America
London: 1803.

References

* H Caritat's Literary Room. Morning Chronicle; Date: 06-08-1803 * Caritat, ed. Bibliothèque américaine: contenant des mémoires sur l'agriculture, le commerce, les manufactures, les moeurs et les usages de l'Amérique; l'analyse des ouvrages scientifiques de ce pays, ainsi que de ceux des Européens qui y ont voyagé; et des extraits des journaux publiés en Amérique, sur tout ce qui peut intéresser le commerc̜ant et l'homme d'état; par une sociéte de savans et d'hommes de lettres. Paris, 1807
Google books

Issued by Caritat

* John Davis. The original letters of Ferdinand and Elisabeth. 1798 * Charles Brockden Brown. Wieland; or The transformation. An American tale. NY: printed by T. & J. Swords, for H. Caritat, 1798 * François René Jean, Baron de Pommereul. Campaign of General Buonaparte in Italy, during the fourth and fifth years of the French republic. By a general officer. 1798 * Charles Brockden Brown.

Ormond; or, the Secret Witness ''Ormond; Or, The Secret Witness'' is a 1799 political and social novel by American writer Charles Brockden Brown Charles Brockden Brown (January 17, 1771 – February 22, 1810) was an American novelist, historian, and editor of the Early ...

. New-York: Printed by G. Forman, for H. Caritat, 1799. * Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Beauties of the Studies of nature: selected from the works of Saint Pierre. New-York: Re-printed for H. Caritat, bookseller, stationer & librarian, by M.L. & W.A. Davis., 1799. * Johann Georg Zimmermann. Essay on national pride; translated by Samuel H. Wilcocke. New York: Printed by M.L. & W.A. Davis, for H. Caritat, bookseller and librarian, 1799. * Thomas Morton. Speed the plough: a comedy, in five acts. New-York: re-printed by M.L. & W.A. Davis, for H. Caritat, bookseller, no. 153 Broad-way, 1800. * M.G. Lewis. The East Indian: a comedy, in five acts. New-York: re-printed by M.L. & W.A. Davis, for H. Caritat, bookseller, no. 153 Broad-Way, 1800. * Helen Maria Williams. The political and confidential correspondence of Lewis XVI: with observations on each letter. 1803 ;Catalogs * The feast of reason and the flow of the soul. A new explanatory catalogue of H. Caritat's general & increasing circulating library. 1799 * Catalogue des livres francais qui se trouvent chez H. Caritat, libraire et bibliothécaire dans Broad-Way, no. 157. 1799

About Caritat

* George Gates Raddin. An early New York library of fiction : with a checklist of the fiction in H. Caritat's circulating library, no. 1 City hotel, Broadway, New York, 1804. New York : Wilson, 1940. * George Gates Raddin. Hocquet Caritat and the Early New York Literary Scene (Dover, N.J., 1953) * Leroy Elwood Kimball. "An account of Hocquet Caritat." Colophon, 1934 {{DEFAULTSORT:Caritat, Hocquet History of New York City Bookstores in Manhattan Businesspeople from New York City French booksellers Libraries in Manhattan Commercial circulating libraries 1790s in the United States 1800s in the United States

See also

References

Further reading

Issued by Caritat

About Caritat