Solicitation.. Pour les francophones... und auch Deutsch. also a UK thing

Hello, This will be easier for me if I write in English.

I’m just a guy in America with a super micro business attempting to re-publish old books. I don’t personally know anyone in Europe and I imagined exploiting OpenMandriva’s basis in France to make new friends.

Directly to the point, I am in search of 2 specific French books. One is available in English translation in UK libraries, but if that can’t be made digital I would be willing to translate a French version. The second I have not found, but is presumably found in the French original and a German translation somewhere in the world. I am hoping that the French or German internet which i can only poorly navigate may give more help.

The books I work with are all in the public domain. The Scientific Basis and Build of Music - Dougald Carmichael Ramsay - Google Livres

The above example is all I have as proof of what I’m presently doing. I needed to have missing pages found before I could even read it all… then I remade the whole book for visual clarity as it was taken from PDF scans of a rare original.

There are two books, one of which is available in 5 or 6 libraries in the England and Scotland… but for now let me begin with the one I could find nothing on:

In German it is called “Geistige Taufe in Sion” and it said to have been translated into German by “F. Laffaire” The author itself is simply “Jacob” (a nom de plume)
The original Language I presume is French which would make its title "Le baptême spirituel en Sion par Jacob
The year published unknown, but is sometime before 1892. if it is an early edition.

For reference the same author has written “esquisse hermétique du tout universel” but that is easy to find and I already have a first draft translation.

The second book is found in UK libraries, already translated, but I don’t know the possibility of my getting a any digital copy as an American. Even pictures of each page with a cellphone would be enough to work with. I will be emailing libraries as sometimes they are willing to make digital scans.

It’s English name is here: From home to Christ | WorldCat.org

I hope that you will appreciate what I am doing. If you end up helping too, that’s wonderful!

All questions welcome.

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Have you tried contacting history and literature professors, historians, museum curators, or anyone else that might have connections in that general realm? Making an effort to preserve historic works of literature before they are lost to time would probably catch their attention.

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I tried a lot of ressources including my college library, the Bibliothèque Nationale Française and other website with my best osint skills but couldn’t find anything about these two books. Sorry, I guess its going to be a hard task.

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It is more likely someone will know something in France or Europe, than here in America. Sometimes it a craps shoot of who you get in contact with. One book which I have not yet published, only existed in the Yale University library and my first email attempts quickly got me a copy of the entire book for the regular fee. A little later I was looking for a different book I emailed the same library and they would not provide me with anything, had nothing to do with copyrights, just refused.

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Thanks for joining.

In the vein of @LeeTalbert’s question… There is one author in France, Johan Dreue, who I had ordered a few books from in 2020… ](https://toysondor.com/) The books never arrived, and I had some strained conversations with him for a week or so. I should probably email him again because at the time I didn’t know these other two books existed, as his focus is on the Esquisse Hermétique du Tout Universel and his own theoretical writings. (He wanted me to publish his books when he heard I intended to publish an English translation.) I think he has done good research about who the anonymous author, but maybe doesn’t think the other books are important?

This morning I received the English copy of From Home to Christ from a library scan. Very excited to read it and understand it.

Still no leads on Geistige Taufe in Sion

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