Ad usum Delphini means “for the use of the Dauphin”. It is a collection of classical Greek

Greek literature

Greek literature refers to writings composed in areas of Greek influence, typically though not necessarily in one of the Greek dialects, throughout the whole period in which the Greek-speaking people have existed.-Ancient Greek literature :...

 and Latin texts

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

 used by the Duke of Montausier

Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier

Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier was a French soldier and the governor of the dauphin, Louis le Grand Dauphin, the eldest son and heir of Louis XIV, King of France....

 for his education of the Grand Dauphin, son of King Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

. This text was on the cover of the traditional texts which had been purified

Expurgation

Expurgation is a form of censorship which involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive, usually from an artistic work.This has also been called bowdlerization, especially for books, after Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work that he...

 because they were too embarrassing or inappropriate passages for the youth. The collection includes 64 volumes published from 1670 to 1698. Authors affected were Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

, Plautus

Plautus

Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...

, Terence

Terence

Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...

, Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, Juvenal

Juvenal

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...

 and Martial

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

.

Even Racine

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

's Esther

Esther (drama)

Esther is the name of a play in three acts written in 1689 by the French dramatist, Jean Racine. It premiered on January 26, 1689, performed by the pupils of the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, an educational institute for young girls of noble birth...

was amended:

Lorsque le roi, contre elle enflammé de dépit, La chassa de son trône ainsi que de son lit, Lorsque le roi, contre elle irrité sans retour, La chassa de son trône ainsi que de sa cour.	When the king, inflamed with spite against her, Drove her from his throne as well as his bed, became: When the king, irritated past return, Drove her from his throne as well as his court.

Today, this expression is used in a pejorative way to indicate a work expurgated in order to be put in all hands.