Eugène Aubert

Born in Wissembourg, France, Eugène Aubert spent much of his career in New York, where he taught French at the Normal College, the institution that later became Hunter College. Contemporary records and an obituary from Hunter describe him as a professor of French who served there for about forty years.

He is best remembered today for French-language teaching books, including Littérature Française (Première Année) and Littérature française: deuxième année. In the preface to Première Année, he explains that the book grew out of his course at the Normal College and was meant for teachers and students studying French literature in a practical, accessible way.

That teaching purpose shapes his writing: instead of treating literature as distant or ornamental, he presents it as something to be studied closely, with historical context, author sketches, and carefully chosen readings. For listeners and readers coming to him now, Aubert offers a window into how French literature was taught to English-speaking students at the end of the nineteenth century.