A SHORT HISTORY
  One easily forgets that there have been several 'Paperback' imprints (1953). Within the NRF alone, between 1928 and 1935, there were "Les livres du jour" and "Succès, then in 1949, "Collection Pourpre".
  In 1953, like many other publishers, Gallimard granted Hachette (a general French bookshop), limited rights to publish in paperback a large portion of its contemporary backlist. In 1970 one third of the titles published in that imprint came from the NRF catalogue. Unfortunately, business relations between Gallimard and Hachette soured with the years and new competition arose among independent publishers. In May 1970, the break up was final. Claude Gallimard announced that Gallimard Group was withdrawing its titles from "Livre de poche", and launching a new imprint as well as creating its own distribution subsidiary. The time for complete independence had come.
  Even though Gallimard was familiar with paperback editions ("Série noire" in 1945, "Idées" in 1962, "Poésie/Gallimard" in 1966…), the launching of "Folio" was a large, risky operation. Every member of staff was mobilised including Claude Gallimard and his sons, Robert Gallimard, Roger Grenier, Bernard Fixot…Within two years, all the literature titles from the Gallimard backlist which had previously appeared in "Livre de poche" had been re-printed in "Folio". Some 500 titles were published in 1972-1973, representing 15 million printed volumes! Malraux saw the publication of the first title in the imprint: La condition humaine; Queneau though was not able to do so in 1978 with the thousandth title, Les fleurs bleues.
  Artistic director Messin chose the white background and book size, close to the US 10x18 format, together with the elegant serif typeface (the old typeface was Baskerville), which immediately set the imprint apart from the competition. The cover of every book carried an original illustration up until 1985, when a photograph replaced it. Although works from the "old" list largely predominate (Gallimard, Denoël, Mercure, Table ronde), there are some recent titles as well as titles from other lists (L'abbé C by Bataille, for instance came from Minuit). Once the imprint had become established and work on the catalogue was well ahead, this trend became stronger. Thus in 2003, two thirds of the new titles were drawn from the Gallimard Group backlist (mainly selected from publications of the past two years; what is called the second pass or printing), the remaining third coming from a variety of publishers (Au Diable Vauvert, le Dilettante, Quai Voltaire, Verticales…)
  Within five years, Folio had made a name for itself in the paperback market. 15 million copies of the imprint's twenty best sellers were sold between 1972 and 1978. As a sign of its fame a new imprint was introduced for young readers in 1978: "Folio junior". Later there were imprints for each age group and since 1985, imprints according to genre, discipline and focus for adult readers. In fact, when in 1989 Antoine Gallimard, now Managing Director of the Group, asked Yvon Girard to look after "Folio", the objectives were twofold: develop the literature section by drawing more on the lists of outside publishing firms, and create new imprints. The first objective offered two options: on the one hand assemble in "Folio" the scattered works of a number of acknowledged writers as well as authors close to the NRF (Sollers, d'Ormesson, Quignard, Delerm…), and on the other hand promote the writings of young authors discovered by outside publishers. This was a way of staying in touch with new readers with specific expectations, to whom it was also important to give access to major works - that was the aim of "Folio 2€", suggesting new contacts to the authors of the catalogue.
  Folio is keen to be seen as a great imprint publishing great works, great authors, great popular successes, contemporary pioneers all of whom "Folio" helps promote to a wider audience.

"FOLIO" BOXED SETS
Muriel Barbery, Une gourmandise – Karen Blixen,  La Ferme africaine –   Albert Camus, L’Étranger – Albert Camus, Le Premier Homme – Truman Capote, Petit déjeuner chez Tiffany – Tracy Chevalier, La Jeune Fille à la perle – Jonathan Coe, Testament à l'anglaise – Albert Cohen, Belle du Seigneur – Sagesses chinoises – Dai Sijie, Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise – Marguerite Duras, Un barrage contre le pacifique – Jean-Pierre Enard, Contes à faire rougir les petits chaperons – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Les Enfants du jazz – Romain Gary, La Promesse de l'aube – Romain Gary, La Vie devant soi – Ernest Hemingway, Le Vieil Homme et la mer – Ernest Hemingway, Paris est une fête –  Sébastien Japrisot, Un long dimanche de fiançailles – Jack Kerouac, Sur la route – André Malraux, La Condition humaine – Yann Martel, L’Histoire de Pi – Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita – Georges Orwell, 1984 – Arto Paasilinna, Le Lièvre de Vatanen – Marcel Proust,  Du côté de chez Swann – Raymond Queneau, Zazie dans le métro – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes – Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mots – John Steinbeck, Des souris et des hommes – Arundhati Roy, Le Dieu des petits riens – Léon Tolstoï, Anna Karénine