Creation
The legend of Belles Lettres all started during the Great War, when the linguist Joseph Vendryes (1875–1960), who was fighting against the Germans, wished to read a critical edition of Homer. Unfortunately at this time there were no critical French editions, only German.
At the end of the war they created the Association Guillaume Budé- - named after the French humanist of the 16th century. The association gave a goal to spread the great classics from the Greek and Latin culture, and decided to publish "a comprehensive collection of Greek and Latin authors, texts and translations in French. "
But the Association Guillaume Budé- did not afford its ambitions. To edit these classics, a publishing company was founded, the company Oxford University Press for the development of classical culture, now publishing company Oxford University Press. Capital was assembled from "friends of French manufacturers of Classics," a total of 300 shareholders. Its first president was the Hellenist Paul Mazon (1874–1955), translator of Homer. The headquarters of the editions was in Paris at 157 Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Read more about this topic: Les Belles Lettres, History
Famous quotes containing the word creation:
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)
“There’s something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)