Éditions Gallimard: Collection Blanche

[VivianDarkbloom]

Is anyone here familiar with the paperbacks of the Collection Blanche of Éditions Gallimard? I ask because I'm planning on getting myself a copy of Proust's Du côté de chez Swann (http://www.amazon.fr/recherche-temps-perdu-c%C3%B4t%C3%A9-Swann/dp/2070724905/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309980036&sr=1-5) and Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes (http://www.amazon.fr/Bienveillantes-Goncourt-roman-lAcad%C3%A9mie-fran%C3%A7aise/dp/207078097X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309980184&sr=1-1), both from this particular Gallimard collection. However, before doing so I want to make sure that I won't be getting one of those dreadful, cheap paper editions on which you can't really gloss because the sheet is too crappy (and too grayish) to properly hold notes, and which doesn't favor fluorescent marker highlighting either because it's also too thin, thin enough for one to see bits of pages 4 and 5 through page 3.

By the way, that happens to be precisely the case with the Folio Classique edition of Du Côté de chez Swann, also published by Gallimard:


http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5279/5910445538_c1141a72a4_b.jpg


http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6047/5909884983_5050596ac7_b.jpg



I really detest these cheap paperbacks and avoid as much as I can buying them. If anybody can share some information on the Collection Blanche, I'd appreciate very much. And just in case somebody has one of these editions but didn't know that was the name of their collection, I linked the mentioned books to their respective pages on Amazon.fr, where you'll find images of their covers.


Cheers.
Viv

[B. Laumness]

These are not paperbacks. This is the old, classical, prestigious, well-known format by Gallimard. See there (http://www.gallimard.fr/collections/english/blanche.htm). A paperback costs around 7 €. A book in this edition costs around 20 €.

A great collection by Gallimard is la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (http://www.gallimard.fr/collections/english/pleiade.htm). It usually offers the complete works of a writer at a reasonable price (around 50 €).

[Emil Miller]

My copy of three of Daudet's novels in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade has excessively thin paper as it runs to over 1500 pp. It was published in 1990 by Éditions Gallimard and is bound in green leather with a filigree of 23 carat gold. I bought it in Paris around the year of publication and certainly never dreamed of making notes in it. For that, a paperback is certainly required but apart from Lettres de mon Moulin, Contes du Lundi etc., it's difficult to get hold of paperbacks of Daudet's novels in London these days although I wouldn't have thought it difficult to find something appropriate for Proust.

[VivianDarkbloom]

These are not paperbacks. This is the old, classical, prestigious, well-known format by Gallimard. See there (http://www.gallimard.fr/collections/english/blanche.htm). A paperback costs around 7 €. A book in this edition costs around 20 €.

A great collection by Gallimard is la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (http://www.gallimard.fr/collections/english/pleiade.htm). It usually offers the complete works of a writer at a reasonable price (around 50 €).

But they're not hardcovers either. Or are they? At least they're described by both Amazon.fr and Fnac.fr as "broché" editions and not as "relié" ones, which I believe are the French equivalent to hardcover binding. I happen to have a copy of Bernanos' Œuvres Romanesques (http://www.amazon.fr/Bernanos-Oeuvres-romanesques-Georges/dp/2070100677/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310276678&sr=1-1), an edition with all his novels published by Gallimard in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, and it is indeed hardcover bound, as usual with this collection.

By the way, the paper in these books is indeed excessively thin. And even though I could dream of making notes in them, despite their price, not only is the paper too thin but the characters are also too small for that.

[B. Laumness]

They are not hardcovers (reliés), but they are not paperbacks (brochés) whose pages are held only with glue. They are brochés books, but there is a thread that holds the pages, as you may see it:
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/592815Photo00001.jpg (http://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=592815Photo00001.jpg)

The paper is not as thin as the paper used in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (papier bible). You can make notes on it, even though the font size is sometimes small:
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/543290Photo00003.jpg (http://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=543290Photo00003.jpg)

There are different sizes. On the following picture I take one book of the Pléiade, two books of Penguin, and three books of this collection Blanche. You can notice that the reader had to cut the pages on two of them (those are older books) and that the cover of one of them is a bit torn:
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/525251Photo00004.jpg (http://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=525251Photo00004.jpg)

[VivianDarkbloom]

Paper seems to be good in these books. It seems to be much thicker than my crappy Proust.

Monsieur Laumness, do you know if there are editions of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Madame Bovary and any of the novels by Zola and Maupassant in this collection? I looked for these books but couldn't find any of them. Mostly what I found were late 19th/20th century ones, as if only titles published from then on were presented in this collection.

[B. Laumness]

I don’t think so, because this collection is mostly used for the new books printed by Gallimard. It happens that old books originally printed by them are still available. In that case, this is not the original edition; for instance, my copy of Regards sur le monde actuel (1931) by Paul Valéry is the 66th edition (1959). Today, it’s very difficult to buy classics in mint condition in a good edition with solid paper and hard cover. Most of the classics are sold in paperback. In this format, you can find at least six decent collections or publishing houses: Le Livre de Poche, Garnier-Flammarion (GF), Champs (by Flammarion), Points, Pocket, Folio (by Gallimard). Personally, I don’t find that latter crappy: it offers a great choice of authors, the book is often supervised by an academic, and I can make notes with a lead pencil on a paper that is not more bad than that of the other paperbacks. If you search for beautiful editions of the classics, you have two possibilities: either the second-hand books, but I guess that you don’t live near the Parisian bookshops and that it’s not easy to find what fits on Internet; either collections such as la Pléiade (the others have less choice, generally are more expensive, and are seldom made by recognized specialists of the writer). The problem with la Pléiade is that you cannot make notes on it and that the big volumes (more than 1800 or 2000 pages) are not very handable. But, for example, I have the whole works by Maupassant in three books, instead of thirty paperbacks; the complete works by Plato in two volumes; all the plays and poems written by Shakespeare in two volumes, etc. And the pages don’t become yellow and don’t take off with the years. There is a new edition of Les Liaisons dangereuses in la Pléiade, but 40 € is probably a bit too expensive, for the book contains besides this novel only Laclos’ letters; I would buy a paperback. As for Madame Bovary, I have an old print that you will find nowhere; there again, I advise a paperback (http://www.amazon.fr/Madame-Bovary-Gustave-Flaubert/dp/207041311X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310318562&sr=1-2) (Folio). And about Zola, since that prolific author wrote many books worth being read, I would take the five volumes of the Pléiade, but the cost is around 300 € (I have his complete works in a different edition, with hard cover, but you won’t find it neither).

[David Lurie]

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]Is anyone here familiar with the paperbacks of the Collection Blanche of Éditions Gallimard? I ask because I'm planning on getting myself a copy of Proust's Du côté de chez Swann (http://www.amazon.fr/recherche-temps-perdu-c%C3%B4t%C3%A9-Swann/dp/2070724905/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309980036&sr=1-5)

I saw a copy of this last week in Bordeaux chez Mollat and it's nothing more than the usual Gallimard edition, it's not a hardcover and the paper is just a little bit better than a Folio edition but it's thinner enough to be unsuitable for notes and fluorescent markers.

[VivianDarkbloom]

Most of the classics are sold in paperback. In this format, you can find at least six decent collections or publishing houses: Le Livre de Poche, Garnier-Flammarion (GF), Champs (by Flammarion), Points, Pocket, Folio (by Gallimard). Personally, I don’t find that latter crappy: it offers a great choice of authors, the book is often supervised by an academic, and I can make notes with a lead pencil on a paper that is not more bad than that of the other paperbacks.

The notes at the end of this edition of Du côté de chez Swann are indeed great, I must admit that. But that's about all there is to offset the poor quality of the paper, which, for me at least, is way too poor. It's not so much its being thin, but rather its somewhat dirty aspect typical of best-sellers sold on airport newsstands, which makes taking notes on it so unsuitable and reading them so unpleasant, as well as, of course, its unfirm texture, which makes it easily susceptible to tearing in the event of one needing to erase a note due to miswriting.

I don't really much care for beautiful editions. Sure it's great to have them, but they're not really that great if they don't serve me well. I do love hardcovers, no doubt about that, but a respectable paperback, one with firm sheets on which I might gloss, is something I appreciate a lot more.

And thanks for the tips. I knew about this new De Laclos on La Pléiade, and have actually been flirting with it for quite some time now. Sooner or later I'll get myself a copy of that, that's for sure, especially now that I believe I have discovered a way of glossing on those books without damaging them, possibly also on these pulp paperbacks that I dislike so much. I'll show you guys later.

Cheers.
Viv

[VivianDarkbloom]

it's not a hardcover and the paper is just a little bit better than a Folio edition but it's thinner enough to be unsuitable for notes and fluorescent markers.

Are you sure about that thinness, David? Judging by the pictures, the paper on B. Laumness' Collection Blanche titles seems pretty thick to me, quite unlike the Bible paper typical of La Pléiade.