(, ; in United Kingdom: New Horizons, in United States: Abrams Discoveries) is an editorial collection of illustrated monographic books published by the Éditions Gallimard in pocket format. The books are concise introductions to particular subjects, written by experts and intended for a general audience.
Created in the style of livre d'art, the collection is based on an abundant pictorial documentation and a way of bringing together visual documents and texts, enhanced by printing on coated paper, as commented in L'Express, "genuine monographs, published like art books". Its creator—Pierre Marchand the "iconophile", as remarked by the German graphic designer Raymond Stoffel—was instrumental in moulding the policy and ideals of the collection, which was an immediate success both in France and internationally.
The first title (English edition: The Search for Ancient Egypt) appeared on 21 November 1986, authored by the French Egyptologist Jean Vercoutter. These scholarly little books then released in successive volumes, without a systematic plan, each of which is structured like a separate book (see monographic series). 588 titles were published by November 2012, with more than 160 volumes of spin-offs and catalogues as of 2021.
Overview
The books are printed using A6 format (125 × 178 mm), according to Encyclopædia Universalis, "with breathtaking iconography (illustration)" reproduced on thick and glossy coated paper, from which leap two or three images per page. In this picture-dense format, the authors must squeeze their words in edgewise. Each book is composed of a monograph on a particular topic, the whole collection covers all areas of human knowledge and experience, such as archaeology, art, culture, civilisation, history, music, religion, science, et cetera, with 502 specialists' contributions. Chronological narrative is the principal structure for describing a subject, for example, the title (UK ed. The Sky: Order and Chaos), which narrated in chronological order to present the varied subjects relating to the sky above and peoples' perception of it, through historical perspective of cultural, social and religious aspects.
The captions for illustrations must be informative, they should not duplicate information in the body text, nor do they interrupt the narrative thread. Researchers and academics must adhere to the constraints of a mainstream collection. Apart from obvious analytical abilities, authors are expected to write quality text and a sensitivity to illustration. A "Découvertes" is not a book of authorship, the author is only one of the many speakers. Bruno Blasselle, director of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, author of two volumes of ('History of Book', and ), and co-author of the title , explained his experience of working for the collection: "For an author, to write a Découvertes title is to be trapped, to put oneself in a situation of being obliged to go beyond his/her own formulation."
The cover design is one of the specificities. The old covers are glossy with black background illustrated in colour, the newer covers are matt-laminated rather than glossy, but more colourful, with different colour codes according to the subject matter. It differs from other reference books by its visual: a full-size picture, with its framing and the power of figurative elements, also a picture well-matched to the inside page layout, with a tiny, relevant picture illustrating the spine. The visual identity is consistent, allowing readers to recognise the collection's international editions. However, there are some exceptions, for instance, the Barcelonese publisher Ediciones B adopted a completely different cover design for their collection .
Each title contains 128–224 pages with approximately 120–220 illustrations printed in four, five, six, or seven colours, both matte and glitter, and sometimes even gold, as in the title , the metallic gold heightens Carl Otto Czeschka's illustrations from . Each book begins with 8–10 full-page illustrations or photographs, prefaced by a pull-quote on the inside front cove, which Thames & Hudson director Jamie Camplin calls it a "cinema-influenced trailer" (designated as pré-générique in French). For the title Champollion : Un scribe pour l'Égypte, this book opens with a succession of reproductions of Champollion's manuscript Grammaire égyptienne; in L'Europe des Celtes (), the reader is greeted by a series of bronze masks and hoary faces carved in stone; the "trailer" for () evokes the tragic launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986; while that of () presents the Eiffel Tower at every stage of its construction.
The novelty lies in the subtle orchestration of the text and the illustration, where successive sequences, inserts and foldouts overlapping in double pages. According to the subject, the body text (designated as in French) is structured into three to eight chapters, consisting of 64 (in the case of the title ) to 128 pages (most of the titles). Each chapter is built using journalistic methods, with a lead paragraph and intertitle. The is punctuated by double-page spreads of images, known as inserts, sort of a halt for pictures. For the title ('Fear of Wolves'), two double-page spreads of reproductions of Gustave Doré's engravings to illustrate Little Red Riding Hood. These books benefit a lot from journalistic and cinematographic techniques, some titles include panoramic foldouts, kind of projection on big screen. Two foldouts in the title , one showing Léon Jaussely's reconstruction of the forum of Pompeii, the other representing the actual condition of the theatre quarter in 1859 by using Paul-Émile Bonnet's drawings, both in a panoramic view. In the title ('The Paper: A Daily Adventure'), through a partnership with paper companies, there are even three luxurious foldouts that all made on different papers from Arjo Wiggins, presenting one of the century watercolours on the traditional manufacture of Chinese paper; the other of the engravings and drawings by Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci; the third depicts today's paper production line with its different machines.
Unlike the in colour, the second part—the "Documents" section ()—is always printed in black and white. It works as an anthology, providing more specialised texts from relevant authors, excerpts, historical records, among others. It contains files made jointly by the author or the publisher, with lead paragraph to link texts and short captions for each file. According to the subject, an annex concludes "Documents" section with a chronology, a filmography, a discography or a bibliography, with a "List of Illustrations" () giving full details of the sources of illustrations, an alphabetical index, as well as photo credits, dedicated to those who want to go deeper into the subject.
The collection also stands out for its attention to detail. On the choice of typeface, for example, Trump Mediaeval for body text, ITC Franklin Gothic for titling, Zapf Dingbats for guillemets, italic for captions with an initial and the last line is underlined, et cetera. The French editions are printed by Kapp Lahure Jombart in Évreux, while the Italian printer Gianni Stavro, who has largely contributed to the elaboration of new techniques used in the collection, retains his position as collaborator for international reissues and coeditions. The bindings are solid, sewn and not glued. As Gallimard's promise to their readers, "the most beautiful pocket collection in the world" ().
The collection formerly consisted of eighteen series—, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and —which have been abandoned, it is now reorganised around seven major subjects with colour codes: (red), (brown), (blue), (white), (dark blue), (yellow) and (green).
History
Découvertes Gallimard was born in Gallimard Jeunesse, based on an idea by Pierre Marchand after the publications of two pocket collections: Découvertes Cadet in 1983 and Découvertes Benjamin in 1984. These three Découvertes collections cater to three levels: grades 4 to 6 (Découvertes Benjamin), grades 7 to 9 (Découvertes Cadet), and grades 10 and up (Découvertes Gallimard). This pocket encyclopaedia initially named ('The Paths of Knowledge'), Pierre Marchand already had the idea when he entered Gallimard in 1972, as he explained: "I have invested fourteen years of my professional life in this collection. Thanks to the success of 'choose your own adventure books' that we were able to embark on this adventure. [...] For the first time, genuine encyclopaedias in pocket format. [...] Our bet is that once you open the book, no matter what subject you read or which page you are on, you can no longer close it." Françoise Balibar, Jean-Pierre Maury, Jean-Pierre Verdet, Marc Meunier-Thouret and some others were the first to experience this pharaonic project that would await the arrival of Élisabeth de Farcy and Paule du Bouchet, in 1981, for truly to take shape. To producing genuine encyclopaedias in pocket format and fully illustrated in colour, in that time, many judged such an editorial project insane. In November 1986, however, the collection was released at Gallimard and directed by Élisabeth de Farcy. She chose authors and organised iconographic campaigns, several editors and iconographers were then gathered, copious "iconographies" (illustrations) were extracted from heritage resources. Élisabeth explained in an interview with : "The image should occupy a central place, as in a work of art." The authors were sceptical about this project at first, even contemptuous, but they have eventually been fascinated by the collection. Some have even authored several books, such as Françoise Cachin, curator of the Musée d'Orsay, author of three books – (), (), (); the physicist Jean-Pierre Maury, who wrote four titles – (), (), () and (); or the historian of religion , who published seven books in the collection.
A preview edition, or "zero edition" () was sent to 500 booksellers during the summer of 1986. The collection was officially released on 21 November of the same year. The first twelve titles, twenty-five thousand copies of each volume were printed. "We've never seen so many things between the first and last pages of a book" is the slogan proposed by Pascal Manry's advertising agency CLM BBDO for the launch of the collection. Without market research at the start, Pierre Marchand, a self-taught man, explained on the television programme : "This project was as old as my thirst for knowledge. No doubt it is necessary to be precisely self-taught to sense the importance of an encyclopaedia. We must have been forced to build our own culture, to seek reliable references, to make clear statements. To conceive 'Découvertes', I didn't need market research, surveys or tests. Right from the start, I wanted to give the public the books I needed." Although "Découvertes" was reserved for youth at the beginning, it was eventually launched for the general adult public. The collection then had a rapid-growth, 105 titles appeared in five years. The first international collaboration was started with the Madrid-based Spanish publisher in 1989, and 19 countries would finally be associated with the project. In 1992, after 151 titles have been published, Gallimard showed interest in the work on mermaid and Siren () by , a Belgian Dutch-language writer. Nevertheless, the Parisian publishing house hesitated, "interesting subject, but how can you illustrate that?" Then De Donder showed a list of about one thousand images that he gathered over years, Gallimard was convinced and made him the first non-French-language author published in the collection.