The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Dive into the heart of the Pléiade, 89 years old, cult collection of French literature

2021-01-16T10:37:49.598Z


THE PARISIAN WEEKEND. The flagship of the Gallimard house, synonymous with eternal fame for the writers who appear there, has managed to survive


“Gaston, a disastrous grocer, refused me the Pléiade […] the idiot!

»Scribbles, angry, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, in March 1957. For several years, the irascible author has sent inflammatory missives every week to his publisher, Gaston Gallimard.

His obsession: to enter the prestigious Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, a literary monument on Bible paper, during his lifetime.

Reclusive in her Second Empire pavilion perched on a hill in Meudon, Céline fulminates.

The volcanic writer has tried everything: flattery, compassion, anger, indignation, insult ... But the severe editor resists.

Ulcerated, the sixty-year-old force the doors of eternity with blackmail.

"You won't have my next book

(Editor's note:" North ")

, that's all, if I'm not at the Pléiade in three months, the rest is blah-blah and tired ..." Finally, Gallimard gave in in June 1959. An enlightened decision - Céline's volume has been one of the bestsellers for sixty years, ensuring, alongside Saint-Exupéry, Proust, Rimbaud and Camus, up to 30% of the collection's turnover.

But the story is cruel.

The controversial author of “Voyage au bout de la nuit” (published by Denoël in 1932) died seven months before the publication of the work.

Letter from Louis-Ferdinand Céline, alias Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, urging Gallimard editions to publish his works at the Pléiade.

/ Gallimard Archives  

In eighty-nine years of existence, the Pleiade has caused more than one writer to lose their minds.

A brotherhood of talents that brings together Racine and Joseph Kessel, Boris Vian and Aeschylus, the collection promises immortality even in its materials.

The roundness of its "chagrin" leather, the delicacy of its sewn pages and the brilliance of its 23-carat gilding make it an art object entrusted for nearly a century to the Babouot workshops, artisans bookbinders with millimeter movements, installed in 35 km from Paris.

The collection includes only two authors per year

In gradations of tinted leathers - havana for the 20th century, emerald green for the 19th century, blue for the 18th century, Venetian red for the 17th century, corinth for the 16th century, purple for the Middle Ages and another green for Antiquity -, 300,000 books come off the presses every year.

In the printer's aisles, between the skins of New Zealand sheep and the gold shipped from the United States, the paper giants slumber.

The secret ingredient?

Time, to soften the paper and the leather and, ultimately, to anchor the text in eternity.

Symbol of French literary excellence, the collection - created in 1931 by an independent publisher and bought two years later by the Gallimard house - publishes around ten books and only includes an average of two new authors per year.

A requirement inherited from its founder, the elegant and magnetic Jacques Schiffrin.

Fascinated by the aura of the missal and charmed by the handiness of the pocket-sized format that appeared a few years earlier, Schiffrin designs a product suitable for the small apartments that are popping up in city centers.

"I wanted to do something convenient", he explains in 1933 to the magazine "All edition".

The collection attracted a young, bourgeois clientele, ready to pay 45 francs for a book (a beginning teacher at the time received an average of 875 francs per month).

Each work requires two to six years of work

Commercial and intellectual success, the Pleiade sold 23 million copies and crossed borders to publish the greatest authors, from Shakespeare to Kafka.

“She defends living literature.

It is not a matter of recognition, nor even of memory.

It's a question of presence ”, explains Hugues Pradier, director of the collection since 1997. Allergic to the image of“ Literary Pantheon ”, he prefers that of“ ideal library.

"A library of admiration, which today counts 228 authors, but only 15 women, reflecting an editorial vision for whom" literary history itself is written in the male until the middle of the 20th century.

"There is a massive catching up to do", regrets Jean-Yves Mollier, historian specializing in publishing, books and the media.

The works of Saint-Exupéry are among the best-selling works of the Pléiade. / Gallimard Archives  

La Pléiade, which defines itself as a "secret society of readers, but of which anyone can become a member", is a brotherhood of giants nestled in the Bochart de Saron hotel, rue de l'Université, in Paris (7th district), headquarters of the Gallimard house.

In his French garden, we discuss literature, cinema and exhibitions, under the benevolent eye of Camus and Malraux.

In the basement, more than a century of unpublished manuscripts and correspondence, jealously hatched by Alban Cerisier, passionate archivist: a gold mine that feeds the sharp critical apparatus (explanatory notes, chronologies, prefaces, etc.), which has become the signature element of the collection.

Newsletter The list of our desires

Our favorites for fun and culture.

Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters

In these offices too, nine men and women renowned for their erudition and their discretion work on the edition of the new volumes.

Each book requires two to six years of work, tens of specialist academics, for thousands of annotated pages.

The group's financial pillar, it is exported all over the world

The flagship of the house, the Pléiade escapes the usual management channels.

Unofficial guarded hunt until the Second World War of the writer André Gide, a close friend of Jacques Schiffrin and the first of the 19 authors published in the bound collection during their lifetime, since the Liberation it has been the prerogative of the Gallimards.

No more contradictory pleadings, jury votes and reading committees in the oval living room of the mansion.

Antoine Gallimard himself reigns over the collection.

The founder's grandson controls every editorial decision.

If the voice is calm, the thought is pugnacious.

"It's monarchical: Antoine governs", confides Michel Braudeau, historical member of the reading committee, to Livres Hebdo, in 2016.

Antoine Gallimard, who has directed the group since 1988, personally takes care of the Pléiade collection. / Express-Réa / Jean Paul Guilloteau  

The Auvergne heir is viscerally attached to the collection which made him discover Baudelaire, Balzac, Mauriac and Dostoïevski.

At the age of 9, he was already carefully watching over his library filled with albums by Tintin and volumes from the Pleiade.

Young Antoine is an avid reader, but his parents are intransigent: when the report card is not satisfactory, they confiscate one of his precious gold-stamped books.

Fifty years later, the devotion is intact: “I care about it above all.

It is the soul and history of Gallimard ”, delivered the businessman to L'Express, in 1999. But before being a story of the heart, the Pléiade is a financial pillar of the group.

In 1981, it represented 20% of Gallimard's turnover.

Today, sales have stabilized at some 270,000 books per year, which gives him all the attention of the house.

A strategic collection, its guardians are rare and chosen with great care.

In eighty-nine years, the Pléiade has only had six directors.

When, in 1997, Antoine Gallimard entrusted its management to Hugues Pradier, the graduate of medieval literature with the eternal round glasses, of monastic discretion, was 38 years old.

Between the two men, the distribution of roles is clear: Hugues Pradier proposes, Antoine Gallimard disposes.

A strategic alliance between intuition and method, business vision and academic culture.

To ensure its future, more "mainstream" authors

"La Pléiade is like a diamond, it is the high jewelry of the bookstore, the French exception", ignites Fabienne van Hulle, founder of the Lille bookstore Place Ronde.

She recalls with a smile her first Pléiade, a Rimbaud, "because you're not serious when you're 17".

A gift that we receive or that we make to mark the major milestones in life… at Christmas, birthdays or weddings.

As for Jean-Yves Mollier who, at the end of the 1960s, while he was carrying out his military service without much enthusiasm, discovered that the volumes of the Pléiade fell into the pocket of his fatigues.

“When the sergeants bothered me, I could get out of this abominable world,” remembers the one who now owns three-quarters of the collection.

At 60 euros per book on average, the Pléiade is a luxury product.

"A year and a half ago, a mother ordered the entire library from me, some 700 titles then published, for her son, but it is exceptional", says Anne Ghisoli, head of the Gallimard bookstore, temple of bibliophiles located boulevard Raspail.

“I have orders from all over the world.

Every day, I send it to the United States, Australia or South America, ”she explains.

But the public of collectors is eroding.

To maintain sales, you have to attract new readers.

When

“The Promise of the Dawn”, by Romain Gary, appeared in 2019, the success was immediate.

Younger customers walked through bookstore doors for the first time, in search of the writer's bound works.

Hugues Pradier knows it, to stay afloat, the collection must accommodate authors more "general": Borges, Gary, Vian, Lévi-Strauss, Sade… and Jean d'Ormesson.

The entry of the works of Jean d'Ormesson in the Pleiade caused controversy.

/ Opal / Leemage / Sandrine Roudeix  

A choice as sentimental as it is commercial.

In 2020, the production of a volume costs between 153,000 and 190,000 euros (from 122,000 to 152,000 euros in 2002), a figure that invites careful selection of elected officials.

By choosing Jean d'Ormesson, Antoine Gallimard anticipates tasty recipes.

The heir has not forgotten anything of the teachings of his grandfather: "I am a merchant who signed a pact with the spirit", explained Gaston Gallimard, screwed in his eternal navy blue suit.

When one morning in January 2014, the telephone rings in his somewhat outdated mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Jean d'Ormesson is far from imagining that he is preparing to join Proust and Rousseau in the Parnassus of the literature.

“It's Antoine, I would like to see you.

"The same afternoon, the octogenarian presents himself, hesitating, at the Gallimard headquarters to hear:" La Pléiade, how are you?

"The writer rejoices:" The Pleiade is well worth a Nobel.

"

In the salons of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, tongues banter.

We talk about imposture, we cry cronyism.

The writer Patrick Besson sarcastically invites Gallimard to induct Nicolas Sarkozy, Jamel Debbouze and Marc Levy to accompany his new protégé.

In the space of a year, the volume is completed and marketed.

It will sell 20,000 copies in the first year: a bestseller!

"It sold very well, I don't know if it read", comments Philippe Roussin, research director at CNRS.

The academician with malicious repartees would answer him: "The Pleiade is not made to be read, it is made to be there!"

"

Source: leparis

All life articles on 2021-01-16

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-14T16:21:49.516Z
News/Politics 2024-02-10T11:15:59.955Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.