Stephens, English for ESTIENNE or ÉTIENNE, famous French printers and publishers. The first to embark in this business was HENRY STEPHENS (c. 1460-1520), who settled in Paris about 1500. His business was taken up in 1526 by his second son ROBERT (b. 1503), having in the interval been managed by his step-father. Robert specially distinguished himself by the excellence of his workmanship, and was in 1539 and 1540 appointed printer to the king in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Early in life he became a convert to the doctrines of the Reformation; and on more than one occasion he got into difficulties with the theological authorities of the university of Paris for introducing editorial changes in the text of the Bibles and Testaments he printed. In 1550 indeed he found it prudent to retire to Geneva. There he remained until his death, on 7th September 1559, and published several of Calvin's works. Robert Stephens was a scholar as well as a printer; he published and printed in 1532 a Latin dictionary (Thesaurus Linguae Latinae) which remained a standard work down to the middle of the 18th century. Amongst his editions of the Holy Scriptures the Latin New Testament of 1523, the Latin Bible (folio) of 1528, and the Greek New Testament (folio; see BIBLE, Vol. II. p. 126) of 1550 deserve special mention. Being a lover of the New Learning he also printed several of the classic authors, numerous Latin grammars, and similar books. Robert's brother CHARLES (1504-64), who graduated in medicine and practised in Paris, took charge of his brother's business when he withdrew to Geneva, and wrote and printed himself an encyclopaedic work (Dictionarium Historicum ac Poeticum, 1553), a collection of ancient treatises on agriculture (Prædium Rusticum, 1554), and other books. Robert's eldest son HENRY (born at Paris in 1528) worthily sustained the reputation of the family. He received an excellent education, and became celebrated for his knowledge of Greek. Both before and after he settled down at Geneva (in 1551) he travelled in Italy, England, and the Netherlands, collating MSS. (mostly Greek), and consorting with scholars. In 1556 he set up a press of his own in Geneva, and issued from it a great number of the ancient Greek authors, including some twenty 'first editions.' His greatest achievement as a scholar was a Greek dictionary entitled Thesaurus Græcæ Linguae (5 vols. folio, 1572), on which he spent nearly all his fortune. In his editions of classic authors he indulged in many textual emendations, most of them based on MS. authority, but some purely conjectural. From about the year 1578 he led a very restless and wandering life, and his business was greatly neglected, till at length he died at Lyons early in 1598. He also wrote his mother-tongue with force and elegance, his most remarkable production in it being the semi-satirical Apologie pour Hérodotc (1566). The traditions of the family were kept up by PAUL (1566-1627), the son of Henry (II.) Stephens, who printed valuable editions of Euripides (1602) and Sophocles (1603); and by Paul's son ANTOINE (1592-1674), who became king's printer at Paris, and amongst other books printed the Septuagint.
See Greswell's View of the Early Parisian Greek Press (1833); French works by Renouard (2d ed. 1843) and Bernard (1856); and Mark Pattison's posthumous Essays (1889).