(b) The printer
The Manzoni—Fairfax Murray copy of the Operette having come up
in a recent Paris sale-catalogue, a new possibility concerning the place of origin of
Gillibert Nehou may now be surmised. Here it is stated that "l'imprimeur, Gilbert Nehou, ou de
Néhou (?), devait être, selon toute probabilité, un normand des environs
de Valognes".[3] In fact there is in
Normandy, near Valognes on the Cherbourg peninsula, a small villlage named Néhou, from
which the printer's family presumably took their name. But there is unfortunately no mention
of Gillibert in the only book devoted to this parish, M.J.E. Lebredonchel's Histoire de la paroisse de Néhou, depuis les tems les plus reculés
jusqu'à nos jours (Cherbourg, 1835).