A SHORT HISTORY
  Antoine Gallimard created “L’Imaginaire” in 1977 as a step between the lists of current and paperback titles. The question, first mooted in 1974-1975, was how to maintain the availability of, or give a new lease of life to, French and foreign titles of the backlist that weren’t quite popular enough to warrant immediately publishing as a “Folio” paperback? The first idea was a semi-paperback imprint for both fiction and essays, but in the end, two sister imprints came off the press, “Tel” in 1976 and “L’Imaginaire” the following year.
  Artistic director, Massé, remembers getting down to work on the layout of “L’Imaginaire “ one 14th of July. He also says he suggested the title, in agreement with Sartre: the same format as “Tel”, with a white background, a contrasted logo combining fine sans serif typeface and a strong horizontal line, each new title having its own expressive and colourful typography, Variation is the mother of form: with new ideas for reprints and the talent of many graphic designers an unusual “typotheca” gradually took shape.
  As early as 1977, “L’Imaginaire” announced that it was opening its doors to the backlists of other publishers. It was a way of saying that editorial choice, not the NRF list, was the core of the imprint. “Whether these books are important because of the newly acquired reputation of their authors, or whether they were already well regarded at the time, even if only briefly, these books are an intrinsic part of an oeuvre”.
  85% of titles are drawn from Gallimard’s backlist and 9% from its subsidiaries (Mercure, Denoël, La Table Ronde). Titles are mostly selected from “La Blanche” (half the titles),, “Du Monde entier” (20%) and “Chemin” (3%). More recently however, titles have been drawn from outside publishers, for French authors (Morand, Sollers) as well as translations. Indeed, between 1976 and 1990 and from 1999 onwards, “L’Imaginaire” has published numerous translations. A new imprint, “L’Etrangère” has since taken over.
  “L’Imaginaire” has kept publishing at a steady pace since 1977, despite an overall decrease in the average print run. Approximately twenty new titles are published every year. Literary historians have compared its editorial approach to the rehabilitation program focussing on a number of works from the middle of the century, a project already undertaken by small publishers in opposition to current literary production and debate. For example Marc Bernard, Henri Calet, Paul Gadenne or Raymond Guérin. Such an interpretation, however, does not hold up under scrutiny. Even a cursory glance will show how much the contribution of foreign literature, especially Anglo-Saxon literature (18% of titles) has been underestimated, together with the contribution of avant-garde writers (Bataille, Blanchot, Burroughs, Des Forêts, Duras, Genet, Thomas), of fringe works (letters and chronicles) and in particular all the literary trends which have fashioned a century of literary research and creation at the NRF and its subsidiaries (Aragon, Leiris, Perec, Le Clézio…).