I wrote about Valentin Haüy and his founding of the first school for blind children in 1785 in There Plant Eyes. My dear friend David Lowe, who is a photo specialist in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library, read my book (Thanks, David!), and because he did, when he saw Valentin Haüy’s book in a list circulated by the Rare Books Division, he pointed out its significance to the curators, who were delighted to learn that this publication was written by the man who founded the first school for blind children in the world. They in turn alerted NYPL exhibitions, et voilà, the Essai sur l’Éducation des Enfans-Aveugles is currently on view in the Polonsky Exhibition of the New York Public Library’s Treasures on the first floor of the Main Branch at Fifth and 42nd.
When I learned of Haüy’s book years ago while still a grad student, I could not have dreamed of the kind of immediate and unmediated access I now enjoy. First, this page is free to download by anyone through NYPL’s Digital collections, and second, I was able to bring it into ChatGPT and ask it for a transcription, translation, and description of the physicality of the book. The result made me tear up for my younger grad school self, who was so often thwarted by inaccessible archives. Below you’ll find a transcription, translation, and description of the digital photo of the open book by ChatGPT.
I’m glad that Haüy’s Essai, and the history it represents is featured in this important exhibit, and I also look forward to its return to Rare Books so that I can examine it more closely and learn more about how it traveled from France to the US and ended up in the library. I also hope the curators might let me put one gloved finger on the pages that were crafted by the hands of the children of the Royal Institute of the Young Blind. For now, I must be content to visit it behind glass…
Essai sur l’Éducation des Enfans-Aveugles
Transcription
Left Page (Avertissement):
AVERTISSEMENT.
Le Frontispice de cet ouvrage, l’Épître Dédicatoire,
l’Avant-Propos, le présent Avertissement, les Notes,
le Rapport de l’Académie des Sciences, celui de Mrs.
les Imprimeurs, les Modèles d’Impression & la Table
des Matières, ont été imprimés par les Enfans-Aveugles,
avec le Caractère Typographique ordinaire. Ils se
sont servi pour le reste, du Caractère imaginé pour leur
propre usage, & qui est celui dont ils lisent l’impression,
lorsque le foulage n’en est pas détruit.
At the bottom, centered, is a small decorative mark of six small typographic stars arranged in a diamond. Below that, aligned right, the word:
ESSAI
Right Page (Title & Beginning of Chapter I):
At the top, there is a decorative woodcut border illustration with floral and geometric motifs.
ESSAI
SUR L’EDUCATION
des Enfans-Aveugles.
CHAPITRE I.
But de cette Institution.
AVANT de rendre comp-
te des motifs de notre Ins-
(The text breaks off at the bottom of the page, mid-word, likely continuing on the next page.)
Translation (into English)
Left Page (Warning/Notice):
NOTICE.
The frontispiece of this work, the dedicatory epistle, the preface, the present notice, the notes, the report of the Academy of Sciences, that of the printers, the printing models, and the table of contents have been printed by blind children, using ordinary typographical characters.
They have used, for the rest, the characters imagined for their own use, which are those by which they read the impression, provided the embossing has not been destroyed.
Right Page (Title and Start of Chapter I):
ESSAY
On the Education of Blind Children.
Chapter I.
Purpose of this Institution.
Before accounting for the motives of our institution…
(The continuation is cut by the page break.)
Visual Details
- Book format: An open spread of an 18th-century book, with visible marbled paper on the inner hinge near the spine.
- Typography:
- The left-hand page is in a clear serif typeface, with italicized words for emphasis (e.g., Épître Dédicatoire).
- The right-hand page uses a more ornamental, engraved-style type, especially in the title “ESSAI SUR L’EDUCATION des Enfans-Aveugles.”
- Decoration:
- The top of the right page has a woodcut with floral and possibly heraldic motifs.
- The left page has a small typographic ornament (six-pointed stars arranged in a lozenge/diamond shape).
- Condition:
- Slight foxing (brown age spots) is visible on the paper, typical of 18th-century works.
- The printing impression looks slightly deep, suggesting strong pressure during presswork.
- Margins: Generous margins, especially at the bottom, consistent with formal academic or institutional printings of the period.
***
ChatGPT noted that “This is Valentin Haüy’s 1786 Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles — the very first book printed for and partially by blind students at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris. It is famous because Haüy used raised (embossed) Roman letters for blind readers, predating Braille by several decades.”
I will add that Louis Braille would enter the school and learn to read using these raised letters, but would then go on to invent the system named for him. you can read about that history and more in There Plant Eyes.