Histoire littéraire de la France

Histoire littéraire de la France is an enormous history of French literature initiated in 1733 by Dom Rivest and the Benedictines of St. Maur but it was abandoned in 1763 after the publication of volume XII. In 1814, members of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (part of the Institut de France) took over the project, which had stopped halfway through the 12th century, and continued where the Benedictines had left off. From 1865 to 1892, the first sixteen volumes were reprinted with only minor corrections in parallel with the regular series.

Today, even though more than 43 volumes have been published, the HLF has not yet finished covering the 14th century. In order to increase the pace and prevent the project from coming to a halt, the committee in charge has decided in March 1999 to abandon a strict chronological order in favor of less constrained structure.

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