Le Livre de Poche
Le Livre de Poche ("The Pocket Book") is a French book series. The publication series was started on February 9, 1953 by Henri Filipacchi and is published by Hachette-Verlag .
History of the book series
A paperback format existed before the book series of the same name: In 1905 a book series was launched by Jules Tallandier Verlag under the name Livre de poche . This primarily served the low-price segment for well-known novels. In 1953, Henri Filipacchi convinced his publishing colleagues Albin Michel, Calmann-Lévy, Grasset and Gallimard to start the Livre de poche series. They are therefore the "founding fathers" of the book series. On February 9, 1953, the first books came on the market, which gained great popularity. The books in the series, which offered well-known literature at low prices and whose design of the front pages of the books was reminiscent of cinema posters, were particularly popular among students. In 1954 Hachette bought the naming rights for the book series, which from now on was published by Hachette Verlag.
At first a new book was added every other week, in 1955 every week. While 8 million copies were sold in the period 1957/1958, in 1969 it was already 28 million.
Shortly after the founding of the Livre de Poche, competitors were added: J'ai lu by Flammarion (1958), Presses Pocket by Presses de la Cité (1972) and Folio by Gallimard (1972). To this day, however, Le Livre de poche remains the best-selling French book series, with over a billion books sold (18 million in 2002). The best-selling book in the series is Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier , followed by Vipère au poing by Hervé Bazin (over 4 million copies each). The best-selling author is Agatha Christie (over 40 million), followed by Émile Zola (22 million).