INTRODUCTION

TO DESCARTES’S CORRESPONDENCE

I. The Clerselier Edition (1657–1659–1667).
II. Legrand’s Editorial Project and the La Hire Collection (1675–1704). The Classification by Poirier or Arbogast (1793–1803).
III. The Victor Cousin Edition (1824–1826).
IV. Autograph Letters and Manuscript Copies.

I. THE CLERSELIER EDITION.

(1657–1659–1667.)

The first edition of Descartes’s Letters is that produced by Clerselier Claude Clerselier (1614–1684) was Descartes’s friend and literary executor, responsible for preserving much of his work, in three quarto a book size where each sheet of paper is folded twice to form four leaves volumes, published in Paris by Charles Angot in 1657, 1659, and 1667. However, several letters had already been printed separately; the following describes the circumstances.

In 1638, Plemp Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius (1601–1671) (Plempius), Professor of Medicine at the University of Louvain, who had twice raised objections against Descartes, summarized the philosopher’s two responses in a first edition of On the Foundations of Medicine original: "De Fundamentis Medicinæ" (1638). Henry de Roy (Regius) Hendrik de Roy (1598–1679), a Dutch physician and early follower of Descartes who later broke away from him, of the University of Utrecht, found the summary inaccurate and complained about it in public theses in 1640; Plemp therefore printed the full text of the two