a review of Bishop's Ronsard: Prince of Poets (1940), the French literature scholar Justin O'Brien pointed out that this book – a combination of a biography and critical study of Ronsard and a collection of translations – "is not . . . a book for specialists. It is written rather for you and me." O'Brien particularly praised Bishop's verse translations of "all of the ten or a dozen deathless lyrics on which Ronsard's fame principally rests, and many other poems as well". He noted how Bishop made Ronsard not merely a historical figure but rather a poet for the mid 20th century. The French literature scholar H. W. Lawton wrote that Bishop "has succeeded . . . in enlivening and making real the successive stages of Ronsard's development. As a work of literary criticism, the book is less satisfactory. . . ." He concluded that the book "may help some beginner to look on the right side of Ronsard's poetry and serve as an antidote to too much dead-handed analysis". The reviewer for Thought found the biography one-sided and the book unscholarly as a whole, but had high praise for the translations. The reviewer for Modern Language Notes found various points on which to disagree with Bishop, but nevertheless concluded that this "work of vulgarization" was "an entertaining and useful book". La Rochefoucauld Bishop's 1951 book The Life and Adventures of La Rochefoucauld got a warm if mixed review from the literary critic F. W. Dupee, who held that La Rochefoucauld's Maxims are "the essentially impersonal product of a definite method", [which Louis Kronenberger] 'defined as a scientific cynicism . . . which tested vanity in a test-tube'" – and that Bishop, who had little regard for the maxims, misunderstood them. But Dupee nevertheless praised the "engaging detail" of the book, and particularly its portrayal of La Rochefoucauld's final years. However, two other reviewers praised the book for the inferences it draws from the maxims. A Survey of French Literature Bishop's two-volume anthology of French texts, A Survey of French Literature (1955), was praised in The French Review for its selection and for the short piece Bishop writes about each author, in which he "displays a great gift for getting at essentials . . . [h]is comments are invariably apt [and designed] as suggestions or challenges" for the student reader. The 1965 revised edition made changes to the selections and