Wordsmith

Writer, physician, philosopher and lexicographer, Émile Littré was commissioned by Hachette in 1841 to compile a new dictionary of the French language. The work, finally started in 1845, took nearly 30 years to complete, during which period France went through a great deal of turbulence. Littré wrote this companion volume, a remarkable novella-length essay, Comment j’ai fait mon dictionnaire (‘How...