Foreign rights
The heritage list carries no rights to sell. Its 44 titles, published between 1913 and 1938, are in the French public domain, and this house holds no translation rights in them.
The position, stated plainly
A house that reissues a public-domain text acquires nothing it can license on. Émile-Paul Frères therefore holds no translation rights in the titles below, offers none and asks nothing of a publisher who wants to work from them.
Its editions set the text alone, recomposed from the period edition, reproducing neither the original frontispiece nor any critical apparatus. That choice is what keeps the list publishable today, and it also means the editions add no new protected layer that could be licensed.
Public domain status is territorial, and the dates below are French. They are established under article L123-1 of the code de la propriété intellectuelle, seventy years from the first of January following the author's death. Term differs elsewhere, and a work free in France can remain protected in another country. In the United States the Uruguay Round Agreements Act restored copyright in many foreign works published from 1930 onward that were still protected at home on the first of January 1996, for ninety-five years from publication. Several titles below fall in that window.
A foreign publisher does not need this house in order to proceed. It needs the source text, its date and a record it can check. The table gives all three. It also needs to establish the status of the title in its own jurisdiction, which is its call and not this house's.
Three things to check before you print
Public domain is decided chain by chain, not volume by volume. Three of them run separately here, and the counts below are read from the list itself, not from memory.
- 3
Titles that are themselves translations into French
Their French text carries its translator's own term, which runs later than the author's. The date in the table is the later of the two. Translating from the original language instead of from the French avoids the question entirely.
- 14
Titles with a documented period frontispiece
The illustration follows its artist, not the author, and several remain protected well past the text. None is reproduced in these editions, and none is covered by the date in the table.
- 2
Titles with a separate critical apparatus
A preface, notes or an edited scholarly layer is a work of its own, with its own term. The date in the table covers the text and nothing else.
Terms are given under French law, article L123-1 of the code de la propriété intellectuelle, seventy years from the first of January following the death. A publisher outside France should check the term in its own territory, which can differ.
The list, with its dates and records
Free since is the year the French text entered the public domain. Every row links to its record in the BnF general catalogue and to the digitisation on Gallica where one exists.
| Title | Author | Published | Free since | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Le Grand Meaulnes | Alain-Fournier | 1913 | 2009 | BnF Gallica |
| Lectures pour une ombre | Jean Giraudoux | 1917 | 2015 | BnF Gallica |
| Amica America | Jean Giraudoux | 1918 | 2015 | BnF |
| Les Butors et la Finette | François Porché | 1918 | 2015 | BnF |
| Elpénor | Jean Giraudoux | 1919 | 2015 | BnF Gallica |
| La Jeune Fille aux joues roses | François Porché | 1919 | 2015 | BnF |
| Adorable Clio | Jean Giraudoux | 1920 | 2015 | BnF Gallica |
| La Jeune Fille verte | Paul-Jean Toulet | 1920 | 1991 | BnF |
| Monsieur du Paur | Paul-Jean Toulet | 1920 | 1991 | BnF |
| Suzanne et le Pacifique | Jean Giraudoux | 1921 | 2015 | BnF Gallica |
| Les Contrerimes | Paul-Jean Toulet | 1921 | 1991 | BnF |
| Les Commandements du destin | François Porché | 1921 | 2015 | BnF |
| La Dauphine | François Porché | 1922 | 2015 | BnF |
| Les Pas effacés | Robert de Montesquiou | 1923 | 1992 | BnF |
| Le Chevalier de Colomb | François Porché | 1923 | 2015 | BnF |
| Sonates | François Porché | 1923 | 2015 | BnF |
| Juliette au pays des hommes | Jean Giraudoux | 1924 | 2015 | BnF Gallica |
| Paray-le-Monial | Henri de Régnier | 1926 | 2007 | BnF |
| La Touraine | René Boylesve | 1926 | 1997 | BnF |
| Basses-Pyrénées | Francis Jammes | 1926 | 2009 | BnF |
| Les Cahiers de Malte Laurids Brigge | Rainer Maria Rilke | 1926 | 2017 | BnF Gallica |
| Deauville | Pierre de Régnier | 1927 | 2014 | BnF |
| Dieppe | Jacques-Émile Blanche | 1927 | 2013 | BnF |
| Toulouse | Tristan Derème | 1927 | 2012 | BnF |
| Bécon-les-Bruyères | Emmanuel Bove | 1927 | 2016 | BnF Gallica |
| Armand | Emmanuel Bove | 1927 | 2016 | BnF |
| Le Crime d'une nuit | Emmanuel Bove | 1927 | 2016 | BnF |
| Le Microbe de l'or | Yvan Goll | 1927 | 2021 | BnF |
| Cluny | Albert Thibaudet | 1928 | 2007 | BnF |
| Pays de Retz | Marc Elder | 1928 | 2004 | BnF |
| Montsouris | Louise Hervieu | 1928 | 2025 | BnF Gallica |
| La Coalition | Emmanuel Bove | 1928 | 2016 | BnF |
| Henri Duchemin et ses ombres | Emmanuel Bove | 1928 | 2016 | BnF |
| Strasbourg | André Hallays | 1929 | 2001 | BnF |
| Chambéry | Marie-Louise Pailleron | 1929 | 2022 | BnF Gallica |
| L'Amour de Pierre Neuhart | Emmanuel Bove | 1929 | 2016 | BnF |
| Vers retrouvés | Charles Baudelaire | 1929 | 1938 | BnF Gallica |
| Toulon | Léon Vérane | 1930 | 2025 | BnF |
| Annecy | Albert Besnard | 1930 | 2005 | BnF |
| Journal écrit en hiver | Emmanuel Bove | 1931 | 2016 | BnF |
| Deux jeunes filles | Emmanuel Bove | 1932 | 2016 | BnF |
| Le Meurtre de Suzy Pommier | Emmanuel Bove | 1933 | 2016 | BnF |
| Poésie | Rainer Maria Rilke | 1938 | 2017 | BnF |
| Le Grand Dieu Pan | Arthur Machen | 1938 | 2018 | BnF |
Nothing here needs a licence. If a question remains, the house answers it.
Enquiries
Rights and reissues
Questions on a term, on which printing a record describes, or on the state of a text the house has established. The contact form is in French, a message in English reaches the same place.