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Foreign literature occupies a special place in the history of the Éditions du Seuil. The foreign literature series were a privileged vector, for this publishing house founded by self-made publishers, in the accumulation of the symbolic capital needed to gain recognition. Created in 1934 with the twin legacy of catholicism and the war, Le Seuil expanded rapidly throughout the 1950s. Starting with a quantitative analysis of the titles published in translation and of the series in which they appeared, the author shows how investing in foreign authors was a way for this new publishing house to win a place among its peers. The writers from the « new Germany » (the « Group of 47 »), were among the jewels in Le Seuil’s literary crown and also enabled the house to manifest its conceptions as an « engaged publisher ». From the mid 1970s, American authors became more visible in the book list, a sign of Le Seuil’s institutionalization in the field of French publishers. While the foreign sector was governed by its own economic rules, it also participated in the general editorial economy of the house.