If the administrative geography of Lorraine suffered deep upheavals until the XX century, it’s in the XVIII century that its territory was consolidated, with a progressive incorporation to France of the Duchy of Lorraine, of Bar, and of the Three Bishoprics. It is from this period that the writers’ corpus of Lorraine was designed, even though a retrospective covering the previous centuries would be welcome in the future. The importance of online cartography shows also the choice regarding the borders of the region of Lorraine, in force up to December 31, 2015.

A land of welcome, exchanges and substantial migrations, the Lorraine region has seen a very large number of renowned writers passing through it, or even living there for a while. However, it is necessary to define more specifically the identity of the region of Lorraine and in particular what is likely to contribute to the forming of a true field of local literature. Authors were thus selected for the corpus, who were born and lived in Lorraine or who lived in it long enough for their work and personal background to be affected. Logically, the Cartography also concerns authors born elsewhere but who were living or who had lived in Lorraine a sufficient amount of time, along with authors born in Lorraine but living in other parts of France. A specific place will be given to native German authors from the region of Lorraine,usually unrecognized too often.

The proposed cartography regards all literary genres, including comic strip authors, youth literature writers, and lyricists. Authors not part of these specific domains were excluded (librarians, historians, political essayists, scientists, media personalities, but also linguists, literature teachers, etc.), except in case one or more of their works match objectively with the literary field. Each selected author must have participated in the life of his/her place of residence or in the local literary life, several publications must have been listed; and as for the playwrights, they must have written a play represented on a local or national stage.

The corpus available for the general public is not a selection of authors based on their literary quality, and in no way does it pretend to certify authors or their works. First, it seeks to list the existing authors without claiming any exhaustiveness, to highlight the diversity and the treasures of the current and former literary life of Lorraine, and to allow a large public to become acquainted with it, as well as allowing researchers to conduct thorough studies. It is neither a fixed dictionary of the diverse literary forms and players in Lorraine, but a living project, still under study and open to outside advice and additions. In this way it aims, within its standards, to contribute to its enhancement with the general public, researchers, and any institutional player, as well as of the history and of the literary life especially rich in the region of Lorraine.