History and heritage

Heritage

What the historic house published, where it stood and what it signed with. Every statement below points to a public record.

Markers

A timeline

1913

The founding publication

Le Grand Meaulnes, by Alain-Fournier, is first issued in volume by Émile-Paul Frères at 100 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, having run as a serial in the Nouvelle revue française from July to October. The novel is shortlisted for the prix Goncourt the same year.

Sources · BnF · Gallica
1914

A single novel

Alain-Fournier is killed at the front. Le Grand Meaulnes remains his only completed novel and enters French letters for good.

Sources · BnF
1924

At the sign of la Folie

The printed wrapper of Visite chez le prince, by Jean Giraudoux, carries the shop sign of the historic house, set around the title: se trouve à Paris chez Émile-Paul Frères, à l'enseigne de la Folie, 100 r. du Fg St-Honoré.

Sources · Gallica ark:/12148/bpt6k3410328x
1929

A publisher's device

Adorable Clio, in the Œuvres de Jean Giraudoux, carries an interlaced monogram, on the printed wrapper and on the title page alike. By then the historic house had left the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré for 14 rue de l'Abbaye.

Sources · BnF · Gallica ark:/12148/bpt6k97370705
Through the century

What remains consultable

The public trace of the historic house is bibliographic: the records of the BnF general catalogue and the volumes digitised on Gallica. No publisher's archival fonds is identified to it to date.

Sources · BnF · Gallica
Today

The revival

The house takes up that heritage, in the tradition of the historic house and in homage to it. A small selective list, named collections, care for the object.

Émile-Paul Frères
Documented heritage

The sign of the historic house

The 1913 title page of Le Grand Meaulnes carries neither colophon nor publisher's device. Its composition is entirely typographic: spaced capitals, short rules, an address block. That holds for 1913, and not for the whole history of the historic house. The digitised corpus records two later states.

In 1924, the wrapper of Visite chez le prince runs a shop-sign legend around the title: se trouve à Paris chez Émile-Paul Frères, à l'enseigne de la Folie, 100 r. du Fg St-Honoré. The address is the one where the house has its origins. See the wrapper on Gallica.

In 1929, Adorable Clio, in the Œuvres de Jean Giraudoux, carries an interlaced two-letter monogram. It appears twice, on the printed wrapper and on the title page, centred between the title and the imprint Éditions Émile-Paul Frères, 14 rue de l'Abbaye, Paris. See the title page on Gallica.

No cover treatment repeats from one title to the next. Juliette au pays des hommes, in 1926, carries a frame with calligraphic fleurons. Judith, in 1931, an engraving by its illustrator. The historic house had no single template.

The monogram of 1929 and the sign of la Folie belong to the historic house. The house today does not take them up and claims no legal continuity with it. Its own sign is a distinct É, of contemporary making. The heritage is cited here as documented history, with its Gallica references, so that it can be checked at the source.

Trust signal

Sources you can check

BnF

Bibliothèque nationale de France. Legal deposit and reference catalogues.

Gallica

The BnF digital library. Editions and documents in open access.

Heritage references on this page point to public collections and catalogues. The French version of this page is at la maison.