Les Belles Lettres, founded in 1919, is a French publisher specialising in the publication of ancient texts such as the Collection Budé.
The two first volumes of the Collection des universités de France, bilingual editions of Greek and Latin classics commonly known simply as Budé after the association, were published in 1920: in the Greek series, the Hippias Minor of Plato, translated by Maurice Croiset, with a yellow cover and the logo of an aryballos in the form of an owl, representing Athena's owl, and shortly afterwards in the Latin series, the De rerum natura of Lucretius, translated by Alfred Ernout, with a red cover and the logo of the Capitoline Wolf.
Fulfilling Vendryes' original wish, the Collection des universités de France publishes scholarly editions in a pocket-sized format.
The volumes are paperbacks, still in the original 13 by 20 centimetres (5.1 in × 7.9 in) size, printed on 80-gram (2.8 oz) cream wove manufactured especially for the publisher.
However, Christian writers, although originally fully within the intended range of publications, editorial beginning, are largely left to the Sources chrétiennes collection of Éditions du Cerf.
Only the literary writings of the church fathers, such as the Confessions of Saint Augustine, have been or will be published in the Collection des universités de France.
Les Belles Lettres has also published outside its collections bilingual critical editions of the complete works of Giordano Bruno and of Petrarch, and less known writers including Jean-Edern Hallier, Philippe Leotard and Francis Lalanne.