Antoine de Léris

Who was Antoine de Léris?

Antoine de Léris, 28 February 1723 — 1795 was a French journalist and drama critic of the 18th century and a historian of the French theatre, author of the Dictionnaire portatif historique et littéraire des théâtres, contenant l'origine des differens théâtres de Paris, published without the author's name on the title page by Jombert in Paris in 1754.The corrected and augmented second edition, 1763, is a standard work of theatre history, a "library" of information. "Léris is accounted by many commentators very nearly the equal of Françis and Claude Parfaict when it comes to painstaking accuracy and responsible commentary," William Brooks observes.

Antoine de Léris supported himself as a man of letters with a sinecure purchased at the Chambre des comptes, as premier huissier. Collaborating with abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier and Antoine Jacques Labbet, abbé de Morambert, he edited the first French review of music, Sentiment d'un harmonophile sur différents ouvrages de musique "Amsterdam", i.e. Paris:Jombert, 1756.