Jean Paulhan was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Française

Nouvelle Revue Française

La Nouvelle Revue Française is a literary magazine founded in 1909 by a group of intellectuals, including André Gide, Jacques Copeau, and Jean Schlumberger...

(NRF) from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member (Seat 6, 1963–68) of the Académie Française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

. He was born in Nîmes

Nîmes

Nîmes is the capital of the Gard department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Nîmes has a rich history, dating back to the Roman Empire, and is a popular tourist destination.-History:...

 (Gard

Gard

Gard is a département located in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.The department is named after the River Gard, although the formerly Occitan name of the River Gard, Gardon, has been replacing the traditional French name in recent decades, even among French speakers.- History...

) and died in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.
From 1908 to 1910 he worked as a teacher in Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

, and he later translated Malagasy poems, or Hainteny

Hainteny

Hainteny is a traditional form of Malagasy oral literature and poetry, involving heavy use of metaphor. It is associated primarily with the Merina people of Madagascar. In its use of metaphor and allusion it resembles another type of poetry, the Malay pantun, and Fox suggests "it seems likely the...

, into French;

Paulhan's translations attracted the interest of Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire

Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....

 and Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...

.

In 1925 Paulhan succeeded Jacques Rivière

Jacques Rivière

Jacques Rivière was a French "man of letters". He edited La Nouvelle Revue Française from 1919 until his death...

 as editor of the NRF. One of his most famous works of literary
criticism was The Flowers of Tarbes, or Terror in Literature (1941), a study of the nature of language in fiction. Paulhan also wrote several autobiographical
short stories; English translations of several appeared in the collection Progress in Love on the Slow Side.

During the Second World War, Paulhan was an early and active member of the French Resistance

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

  and was arrested by the German Gestapo. After the war he founded Cahiers de la Pléiade et en 1953 re-launched La Nouvelle Revue Française.

Author Anne Desclos revealed that she had written the novel Story of O

Story of O

Story of O is an erotic novel published in 1954 about love, dominance and submission by French author Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage.Desclos did not reveal herself as the author for forty years after the initial publication...

 as a series of love letters to her lover Paulhan, who had admired the work of the Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...

.

Works

• Les Hain-Tenys Merinas (Geuthner, 1913, reissued 2007)
• Le Guerrier appliqué (Sansot, 1917 ; Gallimard 1930, reissued 2006)
• Jacob Cow le Pirate, ou Si les mots sont des signes (1921)
• Le Pont traversé (1921, reissued 2006)
• Expérience du proverbe (1925)
• La Guérison sévère (1925, reissued 2006)
• Sur un défaut de la pensée critique (1929)
• Les Hain-Tenys, poésie obscure (1930)
• Entretien sur des faits-divers (1930, 1945)
• L'Aveuglette (1952)
• Les Fleurs de Tarbes ou La terreur dans les Lettres (1936, 1941)
• Jacques Decour (1943)
• Aytre qui perd l'habitude (1920, 1943, reissued 2006)
• Clef de la poésie, qui permet de distinguer le vrai du faux en toute observation, ou Doctrine touchant la rime, le rythme, le vers, le poète et la poésie (1945)
• F.F. ou Le Critique (Gallimard, 1945; reissued by Éditions Claire Paulhan, 1998)
• Sept causes célèbres (1946)
• La Métromanie, ou Les dessous de la capitale (1946, reissued 2006)
• Braque le Patron (1946)
• Lettre aux membres du C.N.E. (1940)
• Sept nouvelles causes célèbres (1947, reissued 2006)
• Guide d'un petit voyage en Suisse (1947, reissued 2006)
• Dernière lettre (1947)
• Le Berger d’Écosse (1948, reissued 2006)
• Fautrier l'Enragé (1949)
• Petit-Livre-à-déchirer (1949)
• Trois causes célèbres (1950)
• Les Causes célèbres (1950, reissued 2006)
• Lettre au médecin (1950, reissued 2006)
• Les Gardiens (1951, reissued 2006)
• Le Marquis de Sade et sa complice ou Les revanches de la Pudeur (1951)
• Petite préface à toute critique (1951)
• Lettre aux directeurs de la Résistance (1952)
• La Preuve par l'étymologie (1953)
• Les Paroles transparentes, avec des lithographies de Georges Braque (1955)
• Le Clair et l'Obscur (1958)
• G. Braque (1958)
• De mauvais sujets, gravures de Marc Chagall (1958, reissued 2006)
• Karskaya (1959)
• Lettres (1961)
• L'Art informel (1962)
• Fautrier l'enragé (1962)
• Progrès en amour assez lents (1966, reissued 2006)
• Choix de lettres I 1917-1936, La littérature est une fête" (1986)
• "Choix de lettres II 1937-1945, Traité des jours sombres" (1992)
• Choix de lettres III 1946-1968, Le Don des langues (1996)
• La Vie est pleine de choses redoutables (Seghers,; reissued by Claire Paulhan, 1990)
• "Lettres de Madagascar, 1907-1910", Éditions Claire Paulhan (2007)
• "Œuvres complètes", edited by Bernard Baillaud, Volume I, Gallimard (2006).