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Nathan is a publishing house which specialises in the production of school textbooks and children’s books, owned via the company Sejer by the group Editis.

History
Fernand Cahen, also known as Fernand Nathan, (1858-1947) was born into a Jewish Republican family. He was the son of Charles Cahen, known as Nathan, a horse dealer. His mother Laure Lipmann came from a wealthy family, and going back to the early 18th century was a descendant of Raphaël Lipmann, a banker in Alsace and a supplier to the seignorial court of the Count de Hanau-Lichtenberg at Bouxwiller.

In 1875 Fernand Nathan was employed by a school publisher in Paris, Delagrave. In 1881, at the age of 23, thanks to a loan from his parents and in collaboration with Jean-Baptitse Fauvé (1834-1893), he created the Librairie classique Nicolas Fauvé and Fernand Nathan, on 16 rue de Condé, in the 6th arrondissement.

The development of his publishing activities went hand in hand with the promulgation of the school law known as the Loi Jules Ferry (1881-1882) which stood for the progress of the democratic values at the time, and a little later with the securalisation of school education resulting from the Combe law and the expulsion of the congregations for Catholic education.

The Fauvé & Nathan bookshop specialized straight away in the production of books in duodecimo format intended for primary education and learning material for younger children, such as ''Zigzag à travers les choses usuelles. Livre de lecture courante à l'usage des classes des lycées et collèges, by G. Renard and P. Martine (1882), Histoire de France des origines jusqu'à nos jours (3 volumes, 1881-1884) for the first three years of school, or Notions élémentaires d'anatomie et de physiologie corps humain appliquées à l'étude de la gymnastique, à l'usage des aspirants et aspirantes au certificats pour l'enseignement de la gymnastique et au brevet de premier ordre'' by M. Dr. Georges Van Getder, medical inspector for Paris schools, with numerous engravings (1882). He also designed books to train young teachers as well as reading books in order to reinforce at home the content seen during class.

Their first publishing successes were the ''Cours d'instruction morale et civique. L'homme - Le citoyen. À l'usage de l'enseignement primaire (1881) written by the Republican deputy and pastor Jules Steeg, together with Cours de pédagogie (1881) and Histoire de la pédagogie, rédigée conformément aux programmes officiels des Écoles normales primaires et de l'examen pour le certificat d'aptitude aux fonctions d'inspecteur primaire'' (1883) by P. Vincent, which were to be published in 10 editions over the course of 3 years.

He also published a number of pedagogical reviews, such as La Vie enfantine, the first issue of which came out in 1904. Afterwards, Fernand Nathan published a number of popular how-to books: guides for women with legal and practical advice, correspondence guides for local government employees, and so forth.

In 1913, the small company moved to 16, rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, and moved again in 1916 to 9, rue Méchain, in the 14th arrondissement.