Stephens Henry

Stephens, HENRY (1528-98), English name for the great French printer and scholar, born in Paris, and the son of Robert Stephens (1503-59), whose true name was Etienne. Robert was an eminent scholar, and began to print about 1525, and issued a large number of learned works, many of which were edited by himself. Perhaps his most famous productions are his editions of the Bible, for which he was persecuted and driven from France by the narrow-minded doctors of the Sorbonne. He favoured the Reformation, and settled in Geneva. His most notable innovation was his division of the Bible into chapter and verse, now universally adopted. Henry Stephens, his son above mentioned devoted himself chiefly to the classical authors, and issued magnificent editions of Homer, Terence, Plato, Xenophon, AEschylus, Herodotus, and other Greek writers. His greatest work is, however, his valuable philological study, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which appeared in five folio volumes in 1572.