Gallimard, Gaston

Gaston Gallimard, (born Jan. 18, 1881, Paris, Fr.—died Dec. 25, 1975, Paris), French publisher whose firm was one of the most influential publishing houses of the 20th century.

The son of a wealthy art collector, Gallimard studied law and literature at the University of Paris and turned to journalism soon afterward. In 1908, with André Gide and Jean Schlumberger, he founded the literary review La Nouvelle Revue Française, a periodical of high intellectual standards. In 1911 the three men established a publishing house for the works of contributors to their review. This firm was called La Nouvelle Revue Française–Librairie Gallimard until 1919, when it became simply Librairie Gallimard. It became the foremost French publishing house of the 20th century, with major works by Gide, Marcel Proust, André Malraux, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and many lesser French authors. The firm also published the well-known La Pléiade series of French literary classics (acquired 1933) as well as the Série Noire, a series of some 2,000 thrillers, detective novels, and spy stories.

Gallimard eventually relinquished the daily administration of the company to his son Claude and grandson Christian. During his lifetime, the firm numbered 18 Nobel Prize winners among its regular authors, and its books garnered 25 Goncourt Prizes.