Investigations

La Fête de l'amitié. Unique complete autograph manuscript [The Friendship's Party][Charenton asylum] n. d. [ca. 1810-1812], in-8: 18,5 x 23,5 cm , (1 f.) 2 f shaved (78 f.), original wrappersThe complete original manuscript of the last play by the Marquis de Sade, ruled in red throughout, comprising 78 leaves of 12 lines written recto and verso. This manuscript, like the other extant items from the Marquis, was dictated to a scribe and corrected by Sade himself. Two pages at the beginning of the notebook were excised before the text was written.

First edition on ordinary paper, illustrated with drawings by Madeleine Lemaire including 14 inset, preface by Anatole France and scores by Reynaldo Hahn. Bound in half red shagreen, spine in five compartments, marbled endpapers, large gilt lace tooling frame on the inner covers, wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, gilt fillet on the leading edges, contemporary binding signed by Franz.

We know Boris Vian as a novelist, songwriter, translator and even a Germanopratin dandy, but did you know that he produced no less than 45 chronicles on Jazz in Paris intended to be broadcast on the American radio station WNEW? A unique working file – entirely written by the hand of Bison Ravi – brings together the fruit of a titanic work and all these broadcasts were recorded before disappearing forever. Were they destroyed? Will they resurface one day? We only know them thanks to the set of manuscripts that we are revealing to you today.

"From the bottle... to the sea" When the booksellers at Le Feu Follet receive a postcard from Hemingway addressed to an unknown recipient, they cast their nets in search of clues—and return with quite the catch! An ocean liner, a young French bartender, a sleepless writer, and a quiet friendship that sails through the years and across the seas...

Taken in May 1938, this unpublished portrait has been printed only after WWII when the negatives of this amazing and latest photo shoot – organized despite the constant surveillance of the Gestapo – were recovered thanks to Anna Freud.

L'Operatorium - Secrets d'atelier (Bibliothèque de Versailles) masterfully demonstrates the uselessness, if not the harmfulness, of using gloves when handling antique books. Unassailable arguments worth spreading!

"With the Engraved Portrait, the Shell, the Two Elephants, the Golden Globe, the Silver Banner, or the Acanthus Leaf... These names alone are invitations to the extraordinary journeys of the most famous visionary novelist."

Before bringing the vast blue of the oceans into the little black box of our living rooms, Commander Cousteau first had to invent another box—one that would descend into the unfathomable depths of Planet Sea. While the adventurer in the red cap is well known, it is less widely recognized that he was, above all, an inventor of revolutionary diving suits and submarines, which launched extraordinary journeys 720 leagues under the seas. Le Feu Follet has uncovered a unique document from the early days of this aquatic conquest.

"Judge me, gentlemen of the jury, but if you have understood me, in judging me you judge all the unfortunate ones whose misery, combined with natural pride, has made them criminals, and whom wealth, or even comfort, would have made honest people!"