author
Émile Faguet
1847–1916
Best known as a sharp, readable voice in French literary criticism, he spent his career explaining writers and ideas to a broad public. His essays range from close studies of major authors to lively reflections on politics, morality, and education.
2 Audiobooks
Le féminisme
by Émile Faguet
La politique comparée de Montesquieu, Rousseau et Voltaire
by Émile Faguet
About the author
Born in La Roche-sur-Yon in 1847, Émile Faguet became one of the best-known French critics of his time. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure, taught in several cities, and later joined the Sorbonne, where he held the chair of French poetry.
He wrote widely on French literature, publishing studies of authors such as Corneille, Voltaire, La Fontaine, Flaubert, and Zola. Alongside his academic work, he was active as a newspaper and journal critic, which helped make his style clear, direct, and accessible to general readers.
Faguet was elected to the Académie française in 1900, a sign of his standing in French letters. He died in Paris in 1916, leaving behind a large body of criticism and essays that still offer a lively picture of literary life in France at the turn of the century.