Proudhon - A Biography

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SUPPLEMENT

philosophy that linked him with Gustave Courbet and the Impres­
sionists— is discussed with some depth by Donald G. Egbert in
Social Radicalism and the Arts: Western Europe (New York, 1970 ) and
finds a place in Eugenia W. Herbert’s The A rtist and Social Reform:
France and Belgium, 1885-1898 (New Haven, 1961 ).
Among the many recent works by French writers on Proudhon
are Proudhon, sa vie, son oeuvre by Georges Gurvits (Paris, 1965 ),
Proudhon, genese d ’un antitheiste by Pierre Haubtmann (Paris, 1969 ),
LAnarchiste Proudhon, apotre de la revolution sociale by Pierre Becat
(Paris, 1971 ), Proudhon: pluralism et autogestion by Jean Bacal (Paris,
1970 ), M arx, Proudhon: theorie du conflit social by Gerard Duprat
(Paris, 1973 ), Defense et actualite de Proudhon by Jacques Langlois
(Paris, 1976 ), and Proudhon, oui et non by Daniel Guerin (Paris,
1978 ). A contribution to Proudhonian biography is Daniel Halevy’s
he Mariage de Proudhon (Paris, 1955 ).
Most of Proudhon’s own works had been rediscovered and re­
published by the time my Pierre-Joseph Proudhon appeared, and un­
doubtedly the most important new item since that time has been
the publication of his Cornets (now kept in the Bibliotheque Nationale);
edited by Pierre Haubtmann, these important notebooks appeared
in three volumes, in 1961, 1962, and 1968, respectively; a translation
into English has not yet been made. W hat is Property? was reissued
in a new edition in New York in 1970 ; I provided the introduction.
But no other single work has been reissued in English or newly
translated. The only late-twentieth-century translation of any sig­
nificance, and the first broad selection of Proudhon’s works to appear
in English, is the Selected Writings o f Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, edited
by Stewart Edwards and translated by Elizabeth Fraser (Garden City,
New York, 1969 ).
Proudhon also found his way into three important recent anthologies
of anarchist writings: The Anarchists, edited by Irving L. Horowitz
(New York, 1964 ), The Essential Works o f Anarchism, edited by
Marshall Shatz (New York, 1971 ), and The Anarchist Reader, edited
by George Woodcock (London, 1977 ). The lack of good translations,
or even complete ones, now as in the past, is not difficult to
understand, for Proudhon was rather like one of those wines of his