French bibliographer, born in Paris on the 2nd of November 1780. He was the son of a bookseller, and in 1802 he printed a supplement to the Dictionnaire bibiographique de livres rares (1790) of Duclos and Cailleau. In 1810 there appeared the first edition of his Manuel du libraire et de lamateur des livres (3 vols.). Brunet published successive editions of his great bibliographical dictionary, which rapidly came to be recognized as the first book of its class in European literature. He died on the 14th of November 1867. Among his other works are Nouvelles Recherches bibliographiques (1834), Recherches sur les éditions originales de Rabelais (1852), and an edition of the French poems of J. G. Alione dAsti, dating from the beginning of the 16th century (1836).
See also a notice by Le Roux de Lincy, prefixed to the catalogue (1868) of his own valuable library. A supplement to the 5th edition (18601865) of the Manuel du libraire was published (18781880) by P. Deschamps and G. Brunet.