Publishing houses and editors
Since its creation in 1988, the Imec has contributed to the preservation of the legacy of publishing houses and to the development of studies on their history.
Seuil catalog, September 1990. Fonds des éditions du Seuil/Imec. Photo credit: Michaël Quemener
The Imec collections were built around collections of documents on 20th and 21st-century publishers gathered by the Bibliothèque de littérature française contemporaine (BLFC, the Library for French Contemporary Literature): La Sirène, Au Sans Pareil, Denoël, Kra-Le Sagittaire. From 1990 onwards, the Institute continued to collect and preserve the archives of publishing houses, with the Éditions Aubier-Montaigne. Then, in 1991, the archives of Larousse and of La Découverte were included in the Imec collections, followed by Bordas, Dunod and Gauthier-Villars in 1993 and 1995.
The Hachette Livre archives entered the Imec collection in 1993—classified as a historical monument in 2002—including several sub-collections (Le Chêne, Hetzel, Laffite, Pauvert, Le Livre de poche) as well as the Hachette historical library. The archives of the Christian Bourgois editions and of La Table Ronde joined the collections in 1994, followed by Stock in 1995 and P.O.L in 1998. At the turn of the year 2000, the Imec collected the archives of the Eyrolles editions as well as a first part of the Editions du Seuil’s archives, which was followed by regular deposits. The Grasset collection was collected in 2003, followed by Albin Michel in 2004, Nathan in 2005, and more recently Buchet-Chastel (2012) and Laffont (2020). The institute is also in charge of housing the archives of smaller publishing houses, including Présence Africaine (2012), La Dilettante (2015), Siloë (2016), L’Éclat (2018) and L’Olivier (2018). Several editorial directors such as Jean-Claude Zylberstein, Francis Lacassin and Maurice Olender also entrusted the Imec with their archives. In January 2024, the historical archives of the Calmann-Lévy editions expanded this collection, offering researchers a vast panorama of the history of French publishing from the 18th century to the present day.
View the collections
File plans, « Edition et métiers du livre » section, « Edition » subsection
