BACKER, AUGUSTIN de. — Scholar, born in Antwerp on 18 July 1869, died in Liège on 1 December 1873. From his youth he undertook travels in Belgium and France with the intention of publishing a study on the origins of the art of printing. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1835 and having noted the incompleteness of the Biblioteca scriptorum S. I. by N. Southwell, he devoted himself entirely to bibliographical research. His principal work is the well-known Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Comp. de Jésus (7 vols., Louvain 1853-61), edited with the assistance of his brother Aloys, also a Jesuit and librarian in Louvain. A few years later a second edition appeared (in 3 vols., ibid. 1869-76), which B. did not live to see fully printed and which was completed by his brother; followed then by a third, even more complete and up-to-date (Brussels 1890-1900), edited by C. Sommervogel.
BACKER, AUGUSTIN DE
BIBL.: V. van Tricht, La Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus et le père A. de B., Louvain 1876; Sommervogel, I. pref., pp. 1-vi, and cols. 753-55.