Les Belles Lettres

Foundation

According to the usual story, the history of Belles Lettres began in World War I when the linguist Joseph Vendryes wanted a critical edition of Homer to include in his field pack, but could find only German editions.

At the end of the war, the Association Guillaume Budé was created, named for the 16th-century French humanist. The association began with the mission of increasing the availability of the great classics of Greek and Latin culture and decided to publish "a comprehensive collection of Greek and Latin authors, [both] texts and translations".

However, the association did not have the necessary funds. The société Les Belles Lettres pour le développement de la culture classique was therefore founded as its publishing company; this has since become the société d’édition Les Belles Lettres. Capital was raised from "French industrialist friends of the Classics", with a total of 300 shareholders. The first president was the Hellenist Paul Mazon, a translator of Homer. The company had its offices at 157 Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris.

After Jean Malye became president of the Belles Lettres, he moved its headquarters to 95 Boulevard Raspail, where they remain. The company currently publishes approximately 100 titles annually.

Distribution company

In 2004, Les Belles Lettres founded a SAS called Belles Lettres Diffusion Distribution (BLDD), through which it distributes books by other publishers.

Fire

On 29 May 2002, a fire destroyed the Belles Lettres warehouse in Gasny (Eure). More than three million books were burnt. A reprinting programme was immediately launched, which has enabled corrections and bibliographic additions.