Pierre Dufay

Born in Blois on July 18, 1864, and dying there on November 28, 1942, he was a French man of letters whose career mixed scholarship with a clear taste for lively, unusual subjects. Library and historical sources describe him as a librarian for the city of Blois, a contributor to Mercure de France, and editor-in-chief of L'intermédiaire des chercheurs et des curieux.

He also took an active part in French literary and learned circles. Records note his links with groups such as the Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Île-de-France, the Société archéologique et historique de l'Orléanais, and the Société J.-K. Huysmans, of which he was a founding member in 1927.

His books and editions show wide-ranging interests: bibliography, literary pastiche, regional history, and finely annotated editions of older texts. Among the works associated with him are Le pantalon féminin, studies connected to Baudelaire and his circle, and collaborations with writers including Léon Deffoux, which together suggest a writer equally at home with archival detail and literary curiosity.