Pierre Villey

Born in Caen in 1879, Pierre Villey was a French university professor and literary scholar best known for his work on sixteenth-century French literature, especially Montaigne. He taught at the Faculty of Letters in Caen and built a lasting reputation through major studies of Montaigne and the Essais.

Villey was blind from early childhood, and that experience shaped an important side of his writing. Alongside his academic work, he wrote about blindness from the inside, most notably in The World of the Blind, and he also served as secretary-general of the Association Valentin Haüy, a major French organization supporting blind and visually impaired people.

His career brought together rigorous scholarship and practical commitment to accessibility and education. He died in 1933, but he remains remembered both as a leading Montaigne specialist and as a thoughtful voice on blindness and human perception.