Widow Mallen and Company

Mariana Bourgeois, woman editor in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Mariana Bourgeois, the Widow Mallen, was an unusual woman who, in the eighteenth century, taking advantage of her social status, founded her own printing workshop in Porto. In this work, by searching through the archives, we’ll draw a biography (familiar, social and professional) of Mariana and her many companies (Francisco Mallen, her husband, João Roberto Bourgeois, her brother, among others) and expose the complex family and commercial network that unites all of them. In this way, we intend to contribute to future investigations on the history of the French booksellers in Portugal, a subject with still so many more characters to explore.