Family Name: Smellie
First Name: William
Birth Date: 1738
Birth Place: Pleasance (Edinburgh)
Death Date: 1793
Death Place: Edinburgh
Main places of activity:
Place
Edinburgh
Personal info:
Education
Smellie was the son of a stone mason, and his early education took place in the village of Duddingstone, where he learned to read and write. He then attended a prestigious public Latin school in Edinburgh, where he learned Greek and Latin.


In 1752 Smellie started his apprenticeship with the publishing company Hamilton, Balfour, and Neill. Neill in particular let him attend  lectures at  Edinburgh University notwithstanding Smellie's duties at the printing house. Although he completed the cursus in arts and medicine, Smellie could not afford the university fees and did not officially obtain a degree.
Career

At the university, Smellie won the favour of the Professor of Botany John Hope, to the point of teaching his course when he could not.

Smellie was appointed corrector to the press at the publishing company and won the silver medal of the Edinburgh Society for printing in 1757. Two years later, he joined the Scots Magazine with the same function, and edited the review, orienting it more towards natural history and medicine.

After briefly considering a medical career, from 1765 onwards he constructed his own printing partnerships, becoming the most prominent printer of Scotland and the engine for the diffusion of the most influential texts of the Enlightenment period.

In 1779, Smellie was nominated to be the professor of natural history, but the post was awarded to Dr. John Walker, allegedly due to political reasons.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Smellie taught himself French in order to translate Buffon's Histoire naturelle, a book he first came into contact with when working on the articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica.

The Natural History was Smellie's life project and only undertaking as a translator. He did make some corrections to Buffon's original text in order to tone it down, rejecting the most controversial  antireligious ideas. But Smellie's version still departs from a conservative Baconian approach and does justice to Buffon's deductive and systematic philosophical approach. Smellie's translation confirms his commitment to the democratisation of knowledge and its diffusion.

secondary bibliography references

R. Kerr, ed., Memoirs of the life, writings, & correspondence of William Smellie, late printer in Edinburgh, secretary and superintendent of natural history to the Society of Scotish antiquaries, 2 vols., Edinburgh and London, 1811.

J. Loveland, 'French Thought in William Smellie's Natural History: A Scottish Reception of Buffon and Condillac', in D. Dawson and P. Morère, eds., Scotland and France in the Enlightenment, London, Associated University Presses, 2004, pp. 192-215.

S. W. Brown, 'Smellie, William (1740-1795)', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008.

Id., 'William Smellie: A Printer's Life', in S. W. Brown and W. McDougall, eds., The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, 2 vols, II: Enlightenment and Expansion (1707-1800), Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2012, pp. 52-61.

Translations

  • Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi

  • Translation Title: Natural history, general and particular, by the Count de Buffon, translated into English
  • Original Author: Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
  • Original title: Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi
  • Publ. Year From: 1748 to: 1803
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Natural history, general and particular, by the Count de Buffon, translated into English
  • Pub. Place: Edinburgh
  • Pub. Date: 1779
  • Lang: English
  • Note:

    Smellie's translation is not literal, but rather creative, as he reformulated some of Buffon's concepts, adding notes and new plates and explicitly expressing his disagreements with the latter on the side. Buffon was however pleased with Smellie's version, and some reviewer acknowledged that the translation was better than the original.

calamaio

By:

  • Giovanni Lista