The enormity of a booklet: first edition and target audience of Thomas Davatz’s (1858) first edition of The colonists in St. Paulo province, Brazil

ABSTRACT The Sharecroppers’ Riot (1856-1857), which took place at Ibicaba farm, is one of the best-known episodes in the history of immigration to Brazil. Beyond its intrinsic relevance, the abundance of sources facilitated and attracted historiographical investigations about the event, particularly the account written by its leader, the schoolmaster Thomas Davatz, who published a book in 1858 with the revised version of his report on the living and working conditions in the farms of São Paulo. This article investigates the history of the writing of that book and the materiality of its first edition, published by Leonhard Hitz, in Chur, Switzerland. The titles published by Hitz and listed in the backcover of Thomas Davatz’s book give us an overview of his target audience. Based on a bibliographical survey on a sample of such books, this paper estimates the cost of Davatz’s brochure in two francs. This estimate and the materiality of the book indicate the low-cost nature of the edition, although the price was non-negligible for the poorest parcel of the population - precisely those interested in emigrating -, corresponding to ca. 10.5 hours of an average Swiss laborer in the 1850s. Finally, by studying its cover, the text raises some hypotheses regarding the editorial decisions made in the first translation into Portuguese by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda for the Biblioteca Histórica Brasileira, a collection organized by Rubens Borba de Moraes. The Brazilian translation is much aligned with the original cover title, which, to a certain extent, differs from that in the coversheet.

摘要：发生于伊比卡巴农场（Ibicaba Farm）的佃农暴动（1856-1857年）是巴西移民史上最广为人知的历史事件之一。除其本身具备的固有学术价值外，丰富的史料为该事件的史学研究提供了便利并吸引了大量相关探讨，其中尤以该事件领导者——校长托马斯·达瓦茨（Thomas Davatz）留下的记述最为突出。达瓦茨于1858年出版了经修订的报告集，收录了其对圣保罗州农场劳工生活与工作状况的调研记录。本文首先考察了该著作的成书历程，以及由瑞士库尔（Chur）的莱昂哈德·希茨（Leonhard Hitz）出版的首版的物质形态特征。托马斯·达瓦茨著作封底所列的希茨出版书目，可帮助我们窥见其目标受众群体。本文基于此类书籍样本的书目调查，估算达瓦茨这本小册子的售价为2法郎。该估算结果与该版本的物质形态特征均表明，此次出版属于低成本运作，尽管该价格对于最贫困群体而言仍不可小觑——而这批群体恰恰正是有移民意愿的人群，其花费约相当于19世纪50年代瑞士普通劳动者10.5小时的薪资。最后，本文通过分析该著作的装帧封面，针对塞尔吉奥·布阿尔克·德·奥兰达（Sérgio Buarque de Holanda）为鲁本斯·博尔巴·德·莫赖斯（Rubens Borba de Moraes）主编的《巴西历史图书馆丛书》（Biblioteca Histórica Brasileira）所完成的首部葡萄牙语译本的编辑决策，提出若干假说。该巴西译本与原版封面标题高度契合，而原版封面标题在一定程度上与内页扉页标题存在差异。