Gaston Gallimard

See also: Gallimard (homonymy)

Gaston Gallimard (Paris, January 18th 1881 - Neuilly-sur-Seine, December 25th 1975) is a editor French, founder of the Éditions Gallimard which occupy a major place in the French literature of the 20th century. It also carries out with more or less success of the companies extra-arts persons: administrator of theater, press baron, producer of cinema and organizer in concerts.

His/her father, Paul Gallimard, are a Rentier which collects the rare books and the impressionist tables. It is friendly with Auguste Renoir. He attends also the theaters.

Gaston Gallimard studies seven years with the Condorcet College, where it becomes acquainted with Roger Martin of Gard. He stops his studies after having obtained his baccalaureat in 1898.

At twenty years, Gallimard is a dandy who seems intended to follow the traces of his father. He becomes secretary of the dramatic author Robert de Flers. Whereas it spends its summer holidays in the family villa of Bénerville-on-Sea (Apple-brandy), it meets Marcel Proust in 1907 or 1908.

In 1910, the New French Review creates a counter of edition and engages Gallimard as manager. This one brings with André Gide and Jean Schlumberger the capital necessary.

The December 17th 1912, with Paris, Gallimard marries Yvonne Redelsperger.

In 1913, it is named administrator of the Théâtre of the Old man-Dovecote which has just been created. It makes knowledge with the actress Valentine Tessier, who will become her mistress.

In 1914, is born his/her son, Claude Gallimard.

At the time of the First World War, Gallimard seeks by all the means to be made reform. It makes several stays in sanatoria. Its activities of editor idle. In 1917, it leaves for six months to New York where it accompanies the troop by the Old man-Dovecote in a round of propaganda for the French culture.

In 1918, after a second stay in the United States, it decides to create a true company clearly distinct from NRF , the Gallimard bookstore. To the beginning of the year 1920, a press campaign against the increasing influence of NRF is launched. The response vis-a-vis this “crusade of long figures” mobilizes all entregent it of Gallimard.

In 1928, the creation of ZED-publications aims at launching weekly magazines ( Détective , Voilà , Marianne …) and of the reviews ( Re-examined cinema …) while protecting the Gallimard bookstore from the possible failures. The weekly magazine of various facts Détective meets a very great success.

In 1930, Gallimard divorces and remarie Jeanne-Léonie Dumont.

In 1933, it produces the film Mrs Bovary of Jean Renoir, whose main role is held by Valentine Tessier. It is a commercial failure.

Gallimard flees the Second world war in the south of France and to Paris only after the Armistice of 1940 returns. It must yield the direction of NRF to Drieu La Rochelle, fascistic author militant, and accept Autocensurer against a paper quota. The attitude of the editor is ambiguous. It accommodates in its offices of the clandestine meetings of the French Lettres founded by Paulhan while publishing translations of traditional German, like Goethe, to reconcile the Occupant. He refuses with skill the lampoon of Lucien Rebatet the Debris but does not hesitate, in its proposal for a repurchase of the Éditions Calmann-Levy, to declare his house “ Aryan with Aryan capital ”. The suicide of Drieu La Rochelle and the support without fault of resistant writers (Camus, Malraux,…) allow Gallimard to protect the Gallimard bookstore from the purification which follows the Libération. Responsible for all the sins, NRF is prohibited of publication.

The war is the occasion of another company extra-arts person: “concerts of the Pleiad” that Gallimard organizes starting from 1943.

In 1960, Albert Camus and Michel Gallimard, nephew and “spiritual sons” of Gallimard, are killed in an car accident. Gallimard, whose forces decline, gradually passes the capacity to his/her Claude son. He dies in 1975.

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