Belles-lettres


literature regarded as a fine art, especially as having a purely aesthetic function.
light and elegant literature, especially that which is excessively refined, characterized by aestheticism, and minor in subject, substance, or scope.
Historical Examples

A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3 Henry Charles Lea
Hortense, Makers of History Series John S. C. Abbott
Pedagogics as a System Karl Rosenkranz
Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau
Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, October 1899 Various
Lucretia Borgia Ferdinand Gregorovius
Criminal Psychology Hans Gross
Washington Irving Henry W. Boynton
The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete Duc de Saint-Simon
Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association Held at Ottawa, Canada June 26-July 2, 1912 Various

noun
(functioning as sing) literary works, esp essays and poetry, valued for their aesthetic rather than their informative or moral content
n.

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