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July 18, 2025

Le Feu Follet's Letter # 67

This summer, feed your mind!

Who decided summertime idleness and leisurely musings were mindless activities? Curiosity is only a flaw if one has yet to indulge in it...
A Few Summer Handpicks
 
 
 
 
 

This summer, feed your mind!

Who decided summertime idleness and leisurely musings were mindless activities? Curiosity is only a flaw if one has yet to indulge in it.

The more discerning among us relish the pleasures of free-ranging thought—when unshackled from daily obligations, the mind dares to stray beyond the bounds of practical knowledge.

For all such seekers, Le Feu Follet made forays into its catalogue—each an invitation to a different kind of intellectual journey…

 

SELECTIONS

 

FOCUS Letter to a young artist

 

Rilke professes friendship as others do love—or is it the other way around?

In 1918 far from the fire of battle, Rilke tends a different flame.

A literary and secret correspondence, between sensual friendship and a romantic entanglement veiled in modesty, 

with a Thalia or Melpomene—an inspiring muse with medieval overtones...

 
FOCUS ON RAINER MARIA RILKE

 

NEW ACQUISITIONS

Gustave FLAUBERT

Unpublished autograph letter signed

Paris [ca 26 May 1874]

A dismayed Flaubert desperately tries to create his play Le Sexe faible at the Odéon Theatre: "je vous assure qu'elle est honorable. Si nous échouons à l'Odéon c'est une affaire flambée..." [I assure you it is honorable. If we fail at the Odéon this affair is a bust...]
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Michel TOURNIER

Le Roi des aulnes

Gallimard • Paris 1970

First edition, with no deluxe paper copies issued.

Handsome copy complete with its promotional wraparound band "L'amour-ogre".
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Ernest CHANTRE

Recherches anthropologiques sur le Caucase

Henri Georg C. Reinwald • Paris & Lyon 1885-1887

Very rare first edition of the main work by archaeologist and anthropologist Ernest Chantre (1843–1924), specialist of the Caucasus.
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Edmond ROSTAND

La Dernière nuit de Don Juan

1921

First edition, one of 75 deluxe copies printed on papier impérial du japon.

A very handsome copy of this Don Juan play, where he meets the Devil after being granted a ten-year deferment. Don Juan has a last chance to offer true love to just one woman.
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Charles-Thomas-Dominique FOUCHER D'OBSONVILLE

Essais philosophiques sur les moeurs de divers animaux étrangers. Ou extraits des voyages de M***. en Asie

Veuve Tilliard Couturier fils • Paris 1783

First edition, illustrated with a frontispiece engraved by De Launay after Marillier, contemporary binding.

Foucher d'Obsonville set sail for the East Indies around 1753. From Smyrna, he travelled overland to Aleppo and reached Baghdad after a series of tumultuous adventures. From there, he descended the Tigris and the Shatt al-Arab, sailed across the Persian Gulf, and reached the eastern coast of India. 
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George SOULIÉ DE MORANT

L'Acuponcture chinoise

Mercure de France • Paris 1939-1941

First edition. 

The diplomat and sinologist George Soulié de Morant (1878–1955) introduced the practical application of acupuncture to France in 1929, overcoming considerable resistance from the academic establishment.
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Dominique de ROUX à Romain GARY

Maison jaune

Christian Bourgois • Paris 1969

First edition, advance copy.

Exceptional presentation copy inscribed and signed by Dominique De Roux: "For Romain Gary, because it's not just the first step that's hard, and now it's done. De Roux. Your article in LIFE is very beautiful."

Gary had indeed published a celebrated plea for the protection of nature, mankind and endangered species in Life Magazine entitled “Dear Elephant, Sir” (22 Dec. 1967).
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Investigations
Investigations
Everything you’ve always wanted to know — and also what you think you already know, what you didn’t realize you couldn’t ignore, what you assumed no one knew, along with a few other erudite secrets. The Feu Follet investigations are like your curiosity: sharp and spirited.
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