Basic Editions (Story of O and Return to the Chateau)

First Editions
- Histoire d'O par Pauline Réage avec une préface de Jean Paulhan, Seaux, Chez Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1954.
(see photo)
- Retour à Roissy ; précédé de : Une fille amoureuse par Pauline Réage, Paris, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1969.

Editions actually available
- Histoire d'O, précédé de : Le bonheur dans l'esclavage par J. Paulhan, Fayard (Pauvert) ; ISBN : 272020031X
- Histoire d'O, suivi de Retour à Roissy, LGF (Le Livre de poche : 14766) ; ISBN : 2253147664

They brought O into the world

Dominique Aury, author (1907 - 1998)
Jean Paulhan, author of the preface (1884 - 1968)
Jean-Jacques Pauvert, publisher (1926 - )

Essential Chronology

1884 Jean Paulhan is born on 2nd December in Nîmes.
1907 Anne Desclos (future Dominique Aury) is born on 23rd September in Rochefort-sur-Mer.
1941 In October (?) Dominique Aury and Paulhan meets for the first time.
1943 Dominique Aury publishes Anthologie de la poésie religieuse française with Gallimard.
1946 In April Paulhan founds with Gallimard Les Cahiers de la Pléiade (that replaces La NRF). Aury works as the editorial secretary. It is the beginning of their collaboration (which will soon develop into a intimate relationship) for life.
1951 In the course of this year Aury gives the manuscript of Story of O to Paulhan portion by portion.
- In October Paulhan mentions the manuscript of Story of O in his letter to Gaston Gallimard.
1953 La NRF starts to be issued after a twelve year interruption. Paulhan assumes its co-directorship (with Marcel Arland). Dominique Aury becomes its general secretary.
1954 Paulhan publishes “Le bonheur dans l’esclavage” in the January-February issue of Le Disque Vert (Bruxelles).
- In June Histoire d’O is published under the pseudonym of Pauline Réage with Paulhan's preface ("Le bonheur..." ) by Jean-Jaques Pauvert.
1955 Story of O receives a Deux-Magots prize on 21st Januray.
- On 4th March Story of O becomes the subject of legal charges for obscenity (the procedure is annulled in October 1959 but the publicity and the sale to the minors are to be banned until 1967)
1963 Paulhan is elected member of the Académie Française on 27th April.
1967 The publicity ban is lifted.
1968 Paulhan is seriously ill. Aury stays at his beside, writing Une fille amoureuse.
- Paulhan dies on 9th October.
1969 Publication of Pauline Réage’s Retour à Roissy précédé de : Une fille amoureuse by Jean-Jacques Pauvert.
1975 Publication of O m’a dit, Réage’s interview with Régine Deforges, by Jean-Jacques Pauvert.
- A homonyme film adaptation by Just Jaekin is released in September.
1994 The New Yorker publishes in its 1st August issue, an interview of Aury in which she acknowledges for the first time publicly her authorship of Story of O.
1998 Aury dies in the night of 26th to 27th April.
1999 Publication of Vocation Clandestine, Aury’s interview with Nicole Grenier, by Gallimard. In this interview realized in 1989 and destined to posthumous publication, Aury talks in details about her Story of O.