Jacques Rivière (15 July 1886 – 14 February 1925) was a French "man of letters" — a writer, critic and editor who was "a major force in the intellectual life of France in the period immediately following World War I".

Rivière obtained an arts degree in Bordeaux, performed his military service, and returned in 1907 to Paris.

His memoirs of his captivity there were published in 1918 with the title L'Allemand : souvenirs et réflexions d'un prisonnier de guerre (The German: memories and reflections of a prisoner of war).

With Rivière's direction, publication of the NRF resumed on 1 June 1919, and it later published the works of such writers as Marcel Proust, François Mauriac, Paul Valéry, Saint-John Perse, Jean Giraudoux and Jules Romains.

About this time Rivière largely neglected his own career as a writer, and wrote only one short psychological novel, Aimé, published in 1922.