French Canadian Paperbacks Part V

        The most popular genre published by Les Éditions Moderne

Ltée of Montreal from 1944 to 1958 in their imprint Collection 

Petit Format (CPF) was romance; French term “roman d’amour”.

Two hundred and fifty-eight (58%) of the 443 titles were romance. This large percentage is not surprising given how popular the roman d’amour was in France with thousands published in the last century. 

     The CPF titles were all originally published in France. One 

popular author was Magali, pen name of Jeanne Philbert 

(1898-1986), who has at least 28 CPF titles. Her novels

have “heroines [who] win respect through their virtue whilst 

being passionately loved and desired by men whom, in their 

turn, they find supremely lovable.” (Romance and Readership in 

Twentieth-Century France by Diana Holmes, Oxford University 

Press, 2006). 

CPF 385 - March 1953

CPF 387 - March 1953

CPF 530 - October 1955

CPF 448 - Februry 1954

CPF 327 - October 1952

French Canadian Paperbacks Part IV

Continuing discussions of early Canadian publisher Les Editions Moderne's Collection Petit Format.

The art for the imprint was undistinguished, often a generic monochrome drawing, typically of a woman and man. One example is Dashiell Hammett's Pièges à filles (two of six stories from Dead Yellow Women, with two added). This is in contrast to the Presses de la Cité’s Un mystère books. The CFP cover is one of the generic covers while the Un mystère version is from the Dell edition of Dead Yellow Women.

A few times the CPF edition used the cover from the Un mystère edition, but printed in monochrome. An example is Cornell Woolrich’s (as William Irish) L’inspecteur ne sait pas danser (six of eight stories from The Dancing Detective). 

Collection Petit Format 364 - June 1955

Un mystère 24 - 1950

Collection Petit Format 222 - June 1951

Un mystère 46 - 1950

French Canadian Paperbacks Part III

It has been a while since I posted about French Canadian paperbacks. 

Here I describe the 1944-1958 Collection Petit Format (CPF) imprint from Montreal publisher Les Editions Moderne Ltee. There were 443 books in the imprint with romance (258), crime/thriller (84), popular (72) and 29 other. 

There are two authors who had books in each imprint - Peter Cheyney (1 book) and Merlda Mace (also 1), a pseudonym for Madeleine McCoy. Mace's second book Headlong for Murder was first published by New York's Julian Messner in 1943. The CPF title is Ici, danger. Below is Harlequin's edition of her third book Blondes Don't Cry. Both have as a character Christine Andersen.

Harlequin 25 - December 1949

Harlequin 25 back

Collection Petit Format 108 - October 1944

Collection Petit Format 108 back