The Liberation Collection is a comprehensive collection of over 3200 books and pamphlets in French on the subjects of the Second World War, the Occupation and the Liberation published during a period of just over two years, from August 1944 to the end of 1946.
The collection, donated by Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey, led to an exhibition in Cambridge University Library in 2014. Its purpose is to show how the French used the medium of the book to express what had happened to them over the previous five years but the decision to collect everything published on three broad subjects within a limited period provides a unique opportunity to survey the state of book publishing and printing in France at a time when the country was just beginning its long recovery.
These pages describe the collection, explain how to use it and search it and provide access to articles and talks about the collection. We highlight key material from the collection at the links below, on our Flickr page, and on our Facebook group.
Spotlight on items from the collection | |
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More on the New Editorial and Literary Landscape in Post-War France (1944-1946)
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Ravensbrück (1946), Germaine Tillion and Jeannette L’Herminier
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The new editorial and literary landscape in post-war France (1944-1946)
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Illustrated books and humour in Cambridge University Library’s Liberation collection (1944-1946)
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Purposes and Limits of Visual Humour in Early Post-War France through Cambridge UL’s Liberation collection (1944-46)
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“Liberté… J’écris ton nom”: Eluard’s poem and the Cambridge UL Liberation collection
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A paper on Visualization of French Book Covers from the Liberation Collection (1944-1946) at Cambridge University Library
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“Sous la botte” (2): the German boot in the illustrated book covers of the Liberation collection (1944-46)
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“Sous la botte” (1): the German occupation of France and Belgium in the literature of the Liberation (1944-46)
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A Tragedy of Betrayal and Revenge
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Songs of freedom : “Les chants de la liberté, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1870, 1944”
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History in the making – thoughts on cataloguing the Liberation collection (Part 2)
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History in the making – thoughts on cataloguing the Liberation collection (Part 1)
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Songs of the Liberation for VE Day
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Covers from the Liberation Collection
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The Résistante and the Collaborationist: an odd connection in the Liberation Collection
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“Former des hommes” by Jacques de Jésus: more than meets the eye?
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Funding opportunity for a PhD on France and the Second World War: the Cambridge Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection (1944-1946)Cambridge University Library is delighted to have received an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Collaborative Doctoral Award, and invites applications for PhD studentships, starting in 2020-2021. The successful PhD candidate will receive funding to work on the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection (1944-1946), as part of the Doctoral Training Partnership with The Open University.
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The Liberation of Paris, 19-29 August 1944: “Images de notre délivrance” by Georges Duhamel and Claude LepapeOn the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris, we would like to talk about Images de notre délivrance (Liberation.a.7), published in December 1944 by the Editions du Pavois (the publisher in 1946 of L’Univers concentrationnaire by David Rousset, which was awarded the Renaudot prize, Liberation.c.119 and Liberation.c.918). The book, clearly of a bibliophile nature, is presented by the editor as a documentary, the result of an accidental collaboration between a writer, Georges Duhamel (1884-1966), and an artist, Claude Lepape (1913-1994), both reacting to a unique historical event:
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“Sombre est noir” by Amy Bakaloff and Óscar Domínguez (1945): war poetry, from anthologies to illustrated collectionsOne of the last books acquired through the Liberation collection is Amy Bakaloff’s Sombre est noir (Liberation.b.356), a collection of French poetry written during the Second World War and dedicated to Paul Éluard and Georges Hugnet, a writer and publisher engaged in the Résistance. It includes an engraving signed by Óscar Domínguez and two drawings. It is a rare work, one of 232 copies, some numbered on Annam paper, some on blue vellum, and some on vélin des Marais.
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Judging books of the Liberation of France by their cover: a new feature of Cambridge University Library catalogueBook covers, originally designed to protect the pages of a book, now serve a commercial purpose: they attract the gaze, aiming at inducing the purchase and reading of a book. Their design and appearance are determined by national or sectorial rules and traditions: academic versus popular publishing, paperbacks versus hardbacks. In this blog, I will explore some of the characteristics of current French book covers’ design, the growing importance of book covers images in social media and digital collections, and a specific project designed at Cambridge University Library: adding pictures of book covers to catalogue records of the Liberation collection, 1944-46.
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“Les alliés”: Belgian children’s literature in the Liberation collection, 1944-1946As the cataloguing of the remainder of the Chadwyck-Healey collection is progressing, we want to shed light on some of the items which have been recently catalogued. In February, Anne-Laure Lacour and Clara Panozzo completed the full cataloguing of a series of booklets of juvenile literature, the Collection “Les alliés”, published in Brussels between 1944 and 1947. With about 400 items, consisting of individual publications as well as series, children’s literature represents a significant portion of the Liberation collection.
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Recruitment and update on the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection, 1944-1946The Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection, 1944-1946, which consists of books and pamphlets in French on the Second World War, the Occupation and the Liberation, has become a major part of the French Special collections at Cambridge University Library. In 2014 the Liberation collection comprised 600 volumes, but it now includes over 3000 items. Over the years, staff from the Collections and Academic Liaison and the Rare Books departments have contributed to the processing, cataloguing and promotion of the collection. We are now very pleased to be able to recruit a new cataloguer who will be in charge of cataloguing the last 1000 books of the collection!
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“Holocaust Literature” in the Liberation CollectionEverybody knows about Ruth Klüger or Primo Levi; Imre Kertész won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2002, and Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. These authors are famous for their autobiographical texts about the Shoah, which they wrote after having survived the Nazi extermination camps. Their books are well known, they became part of the literary canon and have led to a lot of scholarly research.
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Un ouvrage exceptionnel, tout simplementThis month, we were delighted to welcome our new French specialist, Dr Irène Fabry-Tehranchi. Irène will focus on current Francophone collection development but will also work with French special collections, chief among them the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection. This post looks at the latest Liberation addition: a book signed by Tristan Tzara and Henri Matisse. Le signe de vie, which featured in Sir Charles Chadwyck Healey’s talk ‘The power of the image in liberated France, 1944-46’ earlier this year, was printed in Paris in 1946 and contains poems by Tzara with illustrations by Matisse.
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Identities and identification in the Liberation CollectionEarlier this year, Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey spoke about the visual side of the peerless Liberation Collection he has donated to the University Library. This post, however, focuses on an unillustrated book whose interest, certainly for me as a librarian, lies in the identity of the author.
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Lyon dans les chaînes, or how to illustrate suffering beautifullyLyon dans les chaînes (Liberation.a.60) is a wonderfully illustrated account of the occupation and liberation of the city of Lyon by journalist Pierre Scize. This large volume, held at Cambridge University Library as part of the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection, has an extensive number of coloured lithographs “printed under the surveillance of the artist”, Julien Pavil. The 625 copies of the work were produced between 15 December 1944 and 29 June 1945, which tells us a great deal about the effort and dedication the French were willing to put into book publishing after the Liberation.
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Radio broadcasting and the warThe powerful role of radio propaganda during World War II cannot be overestimated. Information was transmitted quickly to vast populations across borders, overpassing enemy lines. In the UK, the BBC would broadcast in several languages, including French of course, and would even send secret messages to the French Resistance in the form of apparently senseless phrases. The Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection has several publications related to this topic, some of them particularly fascinating.
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Constantin Joffé: the fate of a prisoner-of-warOne of the most striking aspects of the Liberation Collection is the huge number of books consisting of personal narratives, containing the memories of people involved in and affected by World War II. Through dealing with these books one becomes very intrigued by and connected with their authors, their experiences and their suffering. Instances of personal narratives in the Liberation Collection vary widely, in terms of the backgrounds to which the authors belonged, in terms of the topics they choose to address or the quality of the publications themselves. But they all share a deeply human and personal view of the tragic conflict. Here is one example.
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Youth Culture at the Liberation: Résistantes and Résistants in Cardboard Cut-OutsOn a trip to Paris a few years ago, I was wandering along the Seine, glancing casually at the boquinistes when I spotted something interesting: three pieces of cardboard illustrated with scenes from the Liberation of Paris — 19-26 August 1944 — and dated later that year.[1] Looking closer, I could see these sheets were cardboard cut-outs, as the tabs under the figures show (fig. 1, fig. 2, fig. 3). They also contained the only information I have been able to find of them: They were illustrated by Roland Forgues and commissioned by l’Office central de l’imagerie, Paris.
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Camus is outmanoeuvred
Albert Camus had spent the period from April 18 to May 7 1945 in Algeria. When he returned to his home in the rue Sébastien-Bottin, he found the manuscript of a novel about the French Resistance by André Salvet, together with a letter from the author asking Camus to supply a preface. Camus replied courteously, indicating that he felt such an introduction would not be entirely appropriate. “J’ai risqué beaucoup moins que votre héros, et ce n’est pas à moi de le présenter.” He also questioned the desirability of producing any sort of commentary on a novel which should stand alone. “Est-ce à l’écrivain que vous vous adressez? Mais, dans ce cas, il m’a toujours semblé qu’un livre, surtout lorsqu’il témoigne comme celui-là, devait se présenter seul et sans commentaires.” Read more... |
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The book as a precious object
Bell, Book and Candle are symbolic objects in the term that describes an archaic form of excommunication, as well as being the title of a 1950s Broadway comedy, the book representing faith and learning. But I suggest that another term ‘precious object’ can be applied to individual copies of books which memorialize important relationships usually through inscription. Newton’s own annotated copy of his Principia in Cambridge University Library is an example of a precious object because of the intimate relation that particular copy has with the author through his annotations. But the precious object is the physical book itself not its printed text. Three examples of books that are ‘precious objects’ are in the Liberation Collection 1944-1946 in Cambridge University Library Read more... |
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Infographics during the war – charting victory with cute statistics
By early 1945, the tide of the Second World War had turned. The allies were winning the war of armaments, raw materials, and battles; victory was now a question of when, rather than if. It was within this context that Libération-Soir, the newspaper, printed a special entitled Vers la défaite totale de l’Allemagne. |
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Ceux du maquis and a new thesis from 1978
Thanks to the Liberation Collection, the level of modern material that we collect about French history from 1944-1946 has significantly expanded. A recent acquisition drew my attention: Histoire de l’Occupation et de la Résistance dans la Nièvre 1940-1944 / Jean-Claude Martinet ; édition présentée par Jean Vigreux.(C210.c.7324). |
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Newsflash! Hitler lied!
The Literature of the Liberation Collection aims to collect books that reflect the attitude of the French following the liberation of Paris: as the nation began to recover from—and come to terms with—the German occupation (and active French collaboration). Most of the books in the collection (and that we highlighted in the exhibition) are therefore about the French—what they suffered, how they can recover, and how they relate to their recent history. One book that is striking for its different subject matter is Hitler a menti : ce qu’il a dit, ce qu’il a fait / Pierre Deboeuf (Liberation.c.401). |