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First edition, one of the review copies.
Slight sunning at head and foot of spine, without seriousness.
Precious signed presentation from Francis Ponge: "Pour Marthe et Henri Calet leur ami. Francis Ponge."
First edition, one of the review copies.
Spine and covers faded, small chips to the corners of the covers and margins of some leaves, brittle and yellowed paper, front free endpaper detached, a delicate copy.
Exceptional and moving signed autograph inscription by Raymond Guérin: "Pour vous mon cher Calet ces Poulpes où vous savez tout ce que j'ai mis de foi et de désespoir. avec l'admiration et l'amitié du grand Dab. R. Guérin 11.5.53. P.S. Nous sommes au Madison jusqu'au 15 mai, puis, du 29 mai au 5 juin. R.G."
First edition on ordinary paper.
Publisher’s full cloth binding, flat spine, minor inconsequential wear to headcaps and corners.
Illustrations.
Rare and valuable presentation copy to Odette and Francis Ponge.
Final set of corrected proofs of Henri Calet's most important work: Le Tout sur le tout, 136 leaves in 17 unbound quires, with the "ready for press" manuscript inscription dated June 1, 1948. The pages are numbered from 10 to 271 (and, in pencil, from 9 to 274).
"In 1947, Henri Calet began writing "Aux vingt arrondissements", commissioned by Éditions de Minuit, ultimately published by Gallimard in 1948 under the title "Le Tout sur le tout". On 6 December 1948, Calet received for this book – considered by many to be his best – the first Prix de la Cote d'amour, awarded by an exclusively female jury. It honored a sad and tender narrative of great melancholy, allowing the charm and humor of life to overflow at every moment. The first edition of "Le Tout sur le tout" bears a colophon dated June 17, 1948. The work was released for sale on July 24 of the same year. [...] In addition to a number of manuscript technical instructions by Jacques Festy, production manager at Éditions Gallimard, they contain Calet's final autograph corrections, regular and legible" (J.-P. Baril).
"Through "Le Tout sur le tout", a critical reflection on autobiographical literature is initiated. One moves from an emotionally highly engaged self-writing – explosive, in a way – to an original and subtle genre that blends the detached attitude of Memoirs with the iterative aspect of a logbook. New genre, new language: the seismographic writing of La Belle Lurette gives way to that measured tone, bittersweet, imbued with the delectable nostalgia that constitutes Henri Calet's distinctive charm" (Frédérique Martin-Scherrer)
The most desirable copy and the final stage in the genesis of these "memoirs of a forty-year-old man," his last book and one of his great masterpieces.
Provenance: Jean-Pierre Baril.
Set of 10 original photographs taken at Fresnes prison in April 1945, reproduced in Henri Calet’s Les Murs de Fresnes, except for one unpublished print. Numerous editorial notes and measurements on the versos in preparation for publication, two bearing the stamps “Bernès, Marouteau & Cie”; black felt-tip retouching visible on five prints, pencil retouching marks on the two photographs of the food tins.
A set of images taken at Fresnes prison in April 1945, which give voice to a place where under the Occupation too many lives came to an end. These photographs reveal the mute history of the imprisonment of French and foreign resistance fighters—graffiti by those condemned or awaiting judgment, bare cells, and endless corridors.
Two photographs preserve the last traces of the Resistance heroine and feminist Berty Albrecht at Fresnes: her death certificate bearing the chilling words “condamnée par autorité Allemande / Décédée cause inconnue” (condemned by German authority / Died by unknown causes) and a view of her burial site, a simple stake marked with the number 347 in the prison’s vegetable garden, among countless anonymous graves.
With the exception of one unpublished photograph, the images were used to illustrate Henri Calet’s major investigation, Les Murs de Fresnes, in which, even before the armistice was signed, he strove to trace “ceux qui sont passés par là,” (those who were there) particularly the victims of the Nacht und Nebel policy.
