Pierre Larousse, lexicographe et vulgarisateur engagé : Le Grand Dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle

Résumé 0

The Grand Dictionnaire universel du xixe siècle (Great Universal Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century) by Pierre Larousse (1817-1875) is considered to be the reference dictionary of its century. Larousse had a profoundly didactic aim and spent the better part of his life encapsulating human knowledge in one single but monumental fifteen volume work (1866-1876), brought up to date after his death with two supplements (1878 and 1890). His aim was to address as broad a readership as possible with the different domains of knowledge in view to shaping a new concept of citizenship. Starting from an analysis of the “Préface”, this article sets out to analyse the aims and means that Larousse, as an encyclopædist and lexicographer, set himself to take up the challenge of a new form of popularisation, more closely adapted to the reader of the nineteenth century, following the motto “teach everyone about everything.”