C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Critical and Biographical Introduction

By Gaston Boissier (1823–1908)

MARIE LOUIS GASTON BOISSIER is known in Paris as one of the most prominent professors of the Collège de France, and to the outside world as the author of a number of scholarly books of essays, most of them on Roman subjects. Born at Nîmes in 1823, his life has been devoted entirely to literature. Soon after his graduation from the École Normale he was made professor of rhetoric at Angoulême, and later held the same position at Nîmes. He has received the degree of Doctor, and occupied a number of high positions, culminating in that of professor of Latin poetry in the Collège de France, which he still holds. His works have a high value in the world of scholars, and have won him the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, as well as a seat in the Académie Française, which he entered in 1876. His best-known works, ‘Cicero et ses Amis’ (Cicero and His Friends), was crowned by the Académie; and ‘Proménades Archéologiques, Rome et Naples,’ written in 1880, has been translated into English, as has also his life of Madame de Sévigné, which contains many charming bits of comment on the seventeenth century. As a biographer, and also as a historian, he is quiet and accurate—never dry. He has great charm of style, and writes with elegance, correctness, clearness, and originality. He contributed largely, also, to the Revue des Deux Mondes and to scientific publications. His death occurred on June 10, 1908.

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