Translated Images: The English Universal History and its European Translations in the Eighteenth-Century

Abstract

This article examines the functions that can be attributed to the plates included in the volumes of a paradigmatic work of Enlightenment historiography, namely the English Universal History and its European translations. Despite of the importance given to the plates in the title pages of the series, its images have until now received scant attention. Based on the analysis of the functions of the printed visual material for the editions published in English, French and German, this paper shows how the importance of the images gradually declines in the new volumes of the French and the German editions. This shift may be explained by structural changes both in the universal historical thinking and in the editoral market of the German late Enlightenment.