Hachette

Hachette, founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette, a 26-year-old graduate of the École Normale, began as a modest bookstore at 1 Rue Serpente in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The founder's intuition was clear: France needed school textbooks. The Guizot Law of 1833, requiring a primary school in each municipality, caused demand to explode and propelled the company forward.

Visionary, Louis Hachette revolutionized distribution by creating the first railway station libraries and developed a network of 1,200 railway sales points. At his death in 1864, Hachette had become the leading European publisher. The company continued its expansion by acquiring prestigious houses such as Hetzel (the publisher of Jules Verne) in 1914, then Grasset and Fayard in the 1950s.

Today the third largest publisher in the world, the Hachette group brings together more than 200 editorial brands and publishes approximately 15,000 new titles annually in a dozen languages.