An article proposed by Thomtom
In November 1983, Gallimard printed a book for its Folio Junior collection which stood out from its usual publications and which had met with dazzling editorial success in the United Kingdom: The Sorcerer of the Mountain of Fire .
40 years later (!), the collection of “Books of which YOU are the hero” by Gallimard has 212 titles divided into 24 different series!
Let’s retrace this editorial adventure.
The beginnings
The success of The Sorcerer of the Mountain of Fire was also there in France: in one year, the book had two printings and will even benefit from a special Timelife edition (HV2) also in two printings.
From 1983 to 2019, the book will be printed at least 38 times by Gallimard! An editorial success that has never dried up.
The second reprint of The Sorcerer in 1984 coincided with the publication of six other titles also written by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson within a series that they named on this occasion Fighting Fantasy , which would soon take the name of Défis Fantastiques in France.
Gallimard took the opportunity to modify the cover design in order to give these interactive books their own identity so that they stand out from the other books in its Folio Junior collection and so that readers can easily recognize them. It was on this occasion that the motto A book in which YOU are the hero was created.
The success was impressive; the seven books in the collection were quickly reprinted several times during the year. The success with young people is dazzling.
From June 1985, Gallimard will integrate into its collection four series published in English by other publishers and written by other authors ( Loup Solitaire by Joe Dever, Loup*Ardent and Quête du Grail by JH Brennan, Dragon d' Gold by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson) as well as the Witchcraft series! , written by Steve Jackson.
To help the reader find their way around the proliferation of series within the collection, Gallimard will add logos to the book covers. With this addition, Gallimard established the graphic identity of these books and the latter would have a lasting impact on the minds of readers of the time: these were the famous V1 (Version 1) which existed until 1995.
A dazzling success
From 1984 to 1987, in just 4 years, 96 titles were published in this collection!
At that time, a continuous flow of new releases supplied the bookstores.
Gallimard adds 7 new series ( The Forbidden Doors , Cretan Chronicles , Astre d'Or , The Way of the Tiger , Fear , History , The Messengers of Time ) and integrates the German role-playing game The Black Eye into the collection.
The LDVELH truly monopolize the children's sections of bookstores, especially since at the same time, other publishers are also launching into publishing.
Among the most famous are the Histoires à Jouer collections published by Le Livre de Poche (34 titles from 1986 to 1988!!) and the Haute Tension collection published by Hachette (12 titles from 1986 to 1987 including the unfinished series La Saga du Prêtre Jean ).
Slowdown
From 1988 and until 1995, publications slowly slowed down, in line with the gradual loss of interest in the medium in England, where the vast majority of series came from.
During these eight years, 91 new titles will be published, almost as many as in the previous four years.
Eight new series join the collection ( Challenges and Sortilèges , Double Jeu , The Master of Destiny , The Sword of Legend , Sherlock Holmes , Super Sherlock , Metamorphoses and Destiny ), as well as the role-playing game Land of Legend .
However, some series will not survive this editorial slowdown: the last scenarios of L'Œil Noir will never be published (but will be published by Schmidt, who also published the series in parallel in another format); the Métamorphoses series, which was initially to have four volumes, was never completed by its author, the Frenchman Gildas Sagot, and only four of the six volumes of the Destins series were translated in France (the last two were nevertheless published 20 years later by Alkonost ).
From 1997 to 2000, it was the swan song, only 12 new titles were published. LDVELH no longer interests many people, probably dethroned by the public's enthusiasm for video games.
Gallimard is redesigning the layout of the books in the collection to adapt to the English publisher's change in layout: this is the arrival of V2 .
The titles published in this new format do not benefit from the same editorial quality as the V1s. As commercial success declined, printing was done on lower quality paper, and interior illustrations were drastically reduced, or even simply eliminated.
Despite this, Gallimard still supports its historical series and authors: Loup Solitaire (which will see the publication of all the volumes of Cycle 4 of the saga), Défisfantastiques (only one title of the 59 published in England will not be published, La Curse of the Mummy … which Gallimard will eventually release 20 years later!!) and JH Brennan, with his series Défis de l'histoire which will be the last to come out in 2000 to close the collection.
From 2000 and for 12 years in France, the genre was moribund but Gallimard continued to support it by launching V3s and reprints, as well as by publishing an unpublished work from the Défisfantastiques series ( The Emerald Eye ) written by the inexhaustible Ian Livingstone.
However, the observation is cruel: the editorial phenomenon of the end of the 20th century no longer interests anyone at the beginning of the 21st... well, almost.
Renaissance
From 2012, we are witnessing a renaissance of the genre: 12 new titles are published between 2012 and 2023.
These are essentially titles published in the Défis fantasticantes series and written mainly by Jonathan Green and Ian Livingstone (who resumed their writing work following the change of publisher of the series in England) but also the resumption of the Lone Wolf series by its author Joe Dever (who unfortunately died shortly after the publication of volume 29) then by his son, Ben Dever, and Vincent Lazzari from volume 30.
Gallimard is taking advantage of this renewed interest to launch V4 and reissue a few titles from the Défis Fantastiques series and the first 3 cycles of Loup Solitaire.
In order to highlight the new releases, they are published in a large format version of V4 . The Witchcraft series! is also reissued in this format.
For these V4s, Gallimard will benefit from the help of the Scriptarium association to correct various errors that existed since V1: bugs are removed, certain translation errors are corrected.
The success of the large format V4s will encourage Gallimard to launch the V5s which will be exclusively in large format. The work with Scriptarium will also be strengthened, certain titles will benefit from appendices written by the association to provide details on the universe of the series.
Today, Gallimard has refocused and only publishes 3 historical series ( Fantastic Challenges , Lone Wolf and Quest for the Grail ), no new series has been published since 2000 by the publisher.
Within these series, the editorial news promises to be rich in the years to come: 6 unpublished titles remain to be translated and should be published in the coming years (3 Défis Fantastiques including 2 written by the unsinkable Ian Livingstone and the 3 last Lone Wolf who will close this immense saga).
At the same time, other publishers also launched into publishing: Posidonia reissued all the titles in the Histoires à Jouer series, even adding previously unpublished ones; Scriptarium has started the reissue of Cycle 2 of the Défis et Sortilèges series and Alkonost has launched several new series by illustrious authors from the Gallimard series (notably Fabled Lands by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson and Les Contes Tordus de Green by Jonathan Green) and has completely reissued the Destins series which had been partly published initially by Gallimard.
The editorial adventure will surely continue for a few more years and the resumption of the torch seems assured!!
Translation by Google Translate