Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built independent library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has 1700 edition of "Les caracteres de Theophraste" by Jean de La Bruyère

Added at 07:42 on 16 August 2025

The Leighton Library has a 1700 edition of "Les caracteres de Theophraste" by French philosopher and moralist, who was noted for his satire, Jean de La Bruyère who was born #OnThisDay 16 August 1645.

This book was a creative expansion of Theophrastus’s ancient Greek character sketches. He translated and adapted them, then added his own observations of 17th-century French society, especially the aristocracy under King Louis XIV.

His writings were his observations of what he saw as the hypocrisy and corruption of the court of Louis XIV and recorded his observations of aristocratic foibles and follies, which earned him many enemies at the court, and many readers.

“Caractères ou les mœurs de ce siècle” (Characters or the morals of this century) offered sharp, witty, and often satirical portraits of contemporary figures, making it a mirror of the age’s vanities, hypocrisies, and pretensions.

< Leighton Library has 1810 first edition of "The Lady of the Lake" by Sir Walter Scott