Fiction / non fiction

Grasset was founded in 1907 and has published a number of major twentieth-century philosophers, historians, essayists and novelists, including François Mauriac, Henry de Montherlant, Paul Morand, Jean Giraudoux, and André Malraux, along with Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig. Bernard Grasset’s strong personality and visionary talent helped shape the world of French publishing, and Grasset quickly became one of the country’s most prestigious publishers. Its lists include top literary prizewinners and established authors, as well as fresh new voices in French fiction.

This publisher was founded in 1708 as the Cailleau bookshop and right from the start published authors of renown, including Rousseau, Cocteau and Apollinaire. It was later taken over by Pierre-Victor Stock and in the twentieth century became known for publishing foreign fiction and non-fiction. Its series La Cosmopolite includes books by no fewer than twenty Nobel prizewinners. Today, it is reviving its tradition of producing quality French fiction with, among others, its well-known Bleue collection.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Arthème Fayard Junior contributed to spreading reading as a popular pastime by publishing books in large quantities and selling them at reasonable prices, making Fayard one of France’s most well-known publishers. It has traditionally published French and foreign fiction, the arts, history, music and major works of non-fiction. A century and a half after it was founded, Fayard diversified and a number of imprints – Pauvert, Mille et une nuits, and, since 2010, Pluriel paperbacks – have joined its list.

MAZARINE

Number of active titles on backlist: 100

PAUVERT

Number of active titles on backlist: 200 Number of books published/year: 5

MILLE ET UNE NUITS

Number of active titles on backlist: 800

Number of books published/year: 30

PLURIEL

Number of active titles on backlist: 700 Number of books published/year: 50

JC Lattès promotes new contemporary writing and has a number of successes to its name, including literary prizewinning authors Serge Bramly, Marc Dugain and Delphine de Vigan, along with the two Nobel prizewinners Muhammad Yunus and Professor Luc Montagnier. JC Lattès also publishes historical suspense writer Jean-François Parot, along with James Patterson’s main works and Stephenie Meyer’s fiction for adult readers.  

Le Masque published all of Agatha Christie’s books in French and remains the only French publisher to focus entirely on crime fiction. It even has a series, MsK, for young adult readers. Alongside its famous yellow-jacketed series and its historical suspense collection Labyrinthe, today Le Masque publishes hardback novels by world-renowned authors such as Ian Rankin, Philip Kerr, Don Winslow and Denise Mina.

Calmann-Lévy, founded in the nineteenth century, is one of the oldest French publishers, and is responsible for bringing acclaim to popular fiction with such authors as Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo and Stendhal. In the twentieth century, it turned to non-fiction and essays, publishing such works in French as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. Today, Calmann Lévy is a popular trade publisher, with a varied list of titles that includes French and foreign fiction, literature, detective novels, essays and key documents.

Orbit is the sister company of Orbit US and Orbit UK. It publishes across the spectrum, from urban fantasy to epic adventures and near-future thrillers.

Editions No.1 publishes books for the general public: essays, non-fiction, biographies, fiction and lifestyle books in a wide range of genres and styles.

Livre de Poche, in which Hachette Livre has a 60% stake, pioneered paperback publishing in France as early as 1953, making reading available to a wider audience. Its founder set out to publish small-format, low-cost books in all areas and genres, from classics to contemporary bestsellers, practical guides, dictionaries, essays and reference works. Today, this diversity is still one of the publisher’s main characteristics and its strongest asset. It has sold more than a billion books since it was founded and is France’s top commercial paperback publisher. 

Audiolib, a subsidiary of Hachette Livre, Albin Michel and Direct Group France, has been spreading the concept of audio books in France since 2008 via a broad catalogue. Works are read by actors or the authors themselves, and are available in CD format and for downloading online. People choose audio books for listening pleasure or for practical reasons. The catalogue is regularly updated with bonuses and new functionalities (such as an application available from the Apple App Store).

Les Editions des Deux Terres publishes top works of foreign literary fiction, with novels by authors such as Marina Lewycka and Jim Lynch; thrillers by Patricia Cornwell, Jeffery Deaver, Jesse Kellerman and Ruth Rendel.

Hachette Livre holds a 50% interest in this subsidiary, which is considered the specialist in romance writing. Editions Harlequin is now exploring all fiction genres in large format, pocket format and e-book format.