Gabriel Peignot

Étienne-Gabriel Peignot (15 May 1767 – 14 August 1849) was a 19th-century French bibliographer.

Biography

First a lawyer in Besançon, Gabriel Peignot was a librarian and inspector of several institutions. He was a member of the Académie celtique of Paris, and of several literary societies.

Peignot was one of the most famous bibliographers of his time. Pierre Larousse in his edition of the 19th century encyclopedia states: Peignot was the most learned bibliographer of this century. His learning was immense. To in-depth science books, he joined informed criticism. [...] His bibliographic taste had become a passion of which old books were mainly the object. This spiritual, gay, hard-working, selfless scholar composed innumerable small writings, most printed in small numbers, and much sought by curious; they dealt with spiky or little known features.

Gabriel Peignot published a book, Le Livre des singularités (1841), under the pseudonym "G.P. Philomneste".

Bibliography

Pierre Deschamps, Notice biographique et bibliographique sur G. Peignot, Paris, 1857 (available at Gallica)

Émile Peignot, Lettres de Gabriel Peignot à son ami N.-D. Baulmont, Dijon, Lamarche et Drouelle, 1857 (available at Gallica)

Jules Simonnet, Essai sur la vie et les ouvrages de Gabriel Peignot, accompagné de pièces de vers inédites, Paris, Auguste Aubry, 1863 (available at Gallica)

Marie Foiselle, Gabriel Peignot, écrivain et bibliophile, 1767-1849, Paris, éditions La Bruyère, 2003 (ISBN 2-84014-954-0)