écrits

Écrits is a French word meaning “writings.” In literary and academic usage, it is commonly employed to refer to the body of an author’s written work. The term can denote either the general oeuvre of an author or a specific published compilation that gathers multiple pieces under one cover.

In bibliographic practice, Écrits is often used as the title of a collected edition. Such volumes typically assemble essays, lectures, interviews, and other texts, and they may include editorial apparatus such as introductions, annotations, and a chronology. The edition may be prepared during the author’s lifetime or released posthumously to present the author’s writings as a coherent corpus.

The label is widely encountered in philosophy, literary theory, and related fields, with Derrida’s Écrits (first published in 1967) among the best-known examples. Other scholars have similarly produced Écrits collections. The term should not be confused with the ordinary plural of écriture or with a single written piece (écrit); rather, it signals a curated, comprehensive, or representative assemblage of an author’s writings.