Author: LeGrand d'Aussy, Pierre Jean Baptiste
Biography:
LEGRAND D’AUSSY, Pierre Jean Baptiste (1737-1800: NBG)
As a foreign-language author, Legrand (or Le Grand) requires only a brief headnote. He was born on 3 June 1737 at Amiens, the son of an employee of the taxation office, and educated by the Jesuits. As a member of the order he taught rhetoric at Caen, and when the order was suppressed in France in 1764 he moved to Paris, where he was engaged in scholarly research for the Glossaire Français and undertook bibliographical work by editing some materials from the library of the marquis de Paulmy. His edition of early French poetry (Fabliaux) appeared in three volumes in 1779 with some additional material in 1781: these are the editions that Gregory Lewis Way and George Ellis (qq.v.) used for their English versions, and that William Stewart Rose (q.v.) turned to for Partenopex de Blois. (The first translations in English—Tales of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,1786, and Norman Tales, 1790—had been in prose, intended for a wider market.) Later work included administrative supervision of studies at the military college in Paris and tutoring the son of a tax official. He was elected to the Institut de France and in 1795 appointed curator of French manuscripts at the Bibliothèque nationale. Ambitious plans for a complete history of French poetry were unrealised at the time of his death (6 Dec. 1800) and a project for a comprehensive history of private life was cut short after the first instalment, dealing with food, appeared in 1783. (NBG 30, cols. 386-90; WorldCat) HJ
Other Names:
- Le Grand
- Legrand