Louis Gustave Vapereau (4 April 1819 – 18 April 1906) was a French writer and lexicographer famous primarily for his dictionaries, the ''Dictionnaire universel des contemporains'' and the ''Dictionnaire universel des littérateurs''.

Biography

Born in Orléans, Louis Gustave Vapereau studied

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at the '' École Normale Supérieure'' from 1838 to 1843, writing his thesis on Pascal's '' Pensées'' under the supervision of Victor Cousin. He taught philosophy at

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

until the establishment of the Second French Empire in 1852, when his republican principles cost him his position. Vapereau returned to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to study law, and in 1854 joined the French bar. He did not engage in any legal practice and returned to writing shortly afterwards. In 1858, he published the ''Dictionnaire universel des contemporains'' and from 1859 to 1869 he edited the ''L'Année littéraire et dramatique''. After the collapse of the Empire, Vapereau was appointed

prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect' ...

of Cantal on 14 September 1870 by Jules Trochu's ''Government of National Defense''. He then became prefect of Tarn-et-Garonne from 26 March 1871 until 15 February 1873, when, under pressure from the

Catholic church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, he was released from the prefecture. He also assembled the ''Dictionnaire universel des littérateurs'', publishing it in 1876. From January 1877 to 1888 he was named inspector-general of public elementary schools. Vapereau was the author of some excellent editions of the classics, and of works on political and social questions, but he is famous for his two dictionaries. He also contributed to a number of journals, including ''Revue de l'instruction publique'', ''Revue française'', ''Le Petit Journal'' and ''L'Illustration''. At the time of his death at Morsang-sur-Orge ( Essonne) in 1906, he had been a regular contributor to ''L'Illustration'' for twenty-six years, with some of his notes written for the journal being collected and published in 1896 as ''L'Homme et la vie''.

References

;Attribution *

External links

Entry at ''Les archives Émile Zola''
– in French *''Dictionnaire universel des littératures'' (1876), vol
1 (A–I) 2 (H–Z)
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. 1819 births 1906 deaths Writers from Orléans Prefects of France Prefects of Cantal Prefects of Tarn-et-Garonne French male writers 19th-century French writers 19th-century French lexicographers {{France-writer-stub