Acknowledgments

A translation of Tocqueville’s recollections of the 1848 revolution in France, along with selected letters and speeches to describe his role in it, owes a great deal to the several scholars who compiled these texts and made them available in the first place. The debt is especially large in this case, as except for a few speeches, the material presented here was never published in Tocqueville’s lifetime. We therefore want to express our appreciation to the editors of Tocqueville’s complete works under the Gallimard imprint (Œuvres complètes, hereafter OC), a still ongoing project that began in 1951.

Luc Monnier published the first complete and unaltered edition of Souvenirs from Tocqueville’s manuscript with Gallimard in 1942. It became OC XII in 1964. Forty years later, Françoise Mélonio, who heads the French national commission for the publication of Tocqueville’s work, revised the Monnier edition and added notes on Louis-Napoléon’s coup that she had newly discovered in Tocqueville’s papers (notes published as appendix 3). The translation presented here is based on the Mélonio edition of Souvenirs in Tocqueville’s Œuvres 3, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 2004).

Thanks to the editors of Tocqueville’s complete works, we were able to select and translate complementary passages from Écrits et discours politiques, OC III:3, ed. André Jardin (1990); Correspondance anglaise, OC VI:2, ed. Hugh Brogan, A. P. Kerr, and Lola Mayer (1991), and OC VI:3, ed. A. P. Kerr (2003); Correspondance étrangère, Amérique-Europe continentale, OC VII, ed. Françoise Mélonio, Lise Queffélec, and Anthony Pleasance (1986); Correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville et de Gustave de Beaumont, OC VIII:2, ed. André Jardin (1967); Correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville et d’Arthur de Gobineau, OC IX, ed. M. Degros (1959); Correspondance et écrits locaux, OC X, ed. Lise Queffélec-Dumasy (1995); Correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville et de Louis de Kergorlay, OC XIII:2, ed. André Jardin (1977); Correspondance familiale, OC XIV, ed. Jean-Louis Benoît and André Jardin (1998); and Correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville et de Francisque de Corcelle, OC XV:1 and XV:2, ed. Pierre Gibert (1983).

We also reproduce letters that are not yet part of the OC series from Tocqueville: Lettres choisies; Souvenirs, ed. Françoise Mélonio and Laurence Guellec, Quarto (Paris: Gallimard, 2003).

Our work on this volume was underwritten by the Florence J. Gould Foundation. It is a privilege to thank the foundation and especially John Young for his continuing support of our Tocqueville projects. We are grateful to University of Virginia Press History Editor Richard Holway and Director Mark Saunders for embarking with us on this venture. Olivier Zunz wants also to acknowledge the wise counsel of Charles Feigenoff and of course of Arthur Goldhammer throughout. Arthur Goldhammer wishes to thank Olivier Zunz for his editorial acumen and his valuable historical insight.

Claudia Elzey researched and wrote the informative biographical dictionary, which covers all but five of the people whom Tocqueville mentions by name in his Recollections and in the accompanying speeches and letters.

AG, OZ

Cambridge, Charlottesville

Fall 2016