LANSON. _Histoire de la Littérature française_ (1 vol.).
BRUNETIÈRE. _Manuel de l'histoire de la Littérature française_ (1 vol.).
DOWDEN. _History of French Literature_ (1 vol.).
An excellent series of biographies of the principal authors, by the leading modern critics, is that of _Les Grands Écrivains Français_ (published by Hachette).
The critical essays of Sainte-Beuve are particularly valuable. They are contained in his _Causeries du Lundi, Premiers Lundis, Nouveaux Lundis, Portraits de Femmes, Portraits Littéraires_, and _Portraits Contemporains_.
Some interesting criticisms of modern writers are to be found in _La Vie Littéraire_, by Anatole France.
Editions of the principal authors are very numerous. The monumental series of _Les Grands Écrivains de la France_ (Hachette) contains complete texts of most of the great writers, with elaborate and scholarly commentaries of the highest value. Cheaper editions of the masterpieces of the language are published by Hachette, La Bibliothèque Nationale, Jean Gillequin, Nelson, Dent, Gowans & Gray.
There are also numerous lyrical anthologies, of which two of the best are _Les Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Poésie lyrique française_ (Gowans & Gray) and _The Oxford Book of French Verse_ (Clarendon Press). But it must be remembered that the greater part of what is most characteristic in French literature appears in its poetic drama and its prose, and is therefore necessarily excluded from such collections.
Academy, the French, 34-36 Aesop, 80 Aristotle, 67 Arnold, Matthew, 64 _Aucassin et Nicolete_, 11-12, 13 Austen, Jane, 161
Balzac, Honoré de (1799-1850), 160-164, 166, 168, 171, 175, 176 _La Comédie Humaine_, 161-164 Baudelaire, Charles (1821-67), 172-173, 175 _Les Fleurs du Mal_, 172 Bayle, Pierre (1647-1706) _Dictionnaire Historique et Critique_, 96 Beaumarchais, De [_pseud. of_ Pierre Auguste Caron] (1732-99), 140-141 _Le Mariage de Figaro_, 140-141 Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), 130 Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), 53-55, 143, 167 _Art Poétique_, 53 _À son Esprit_, 54 Bolingbroke, 102 Bossuet, Jacques Benigne (1627-1704), 85-86, 122, 129, 144, 175 _Elévations sur les Mystères_, 86 _Histoire Universelle_, 85, 122 _Méditations sur l'Evangile_, 86 _Oraisons Funèbres_, 86 Bourgogne, Duc de, 95 Browne, Sir Thomas, 35 Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de (1707-88), 118 Byron, 35, 137, 146, 156