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Librairie Le Feu Follet•31 rue Henri Barbusse, 75005 Paris•+33 1 56 08 08 85•Monday - Friday, 11am to 7pm
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Media / Le Feu Follet's Letter

July 4, 2025

Le Feu Follet's Letter #66

The Art of the Frivolous


Haute Couture Books

Haute Couture Books
 
 
 
 
 

 

LIFE IS LIGHT

“Frivolous”: the graceful lightness of the term barely conceals the deep disdain it harbors for a highly gendered form of hedonism. For frivolity is feminine — men, if you please, are epicurean. But when fashion becomes Art, the ridiculous turns exquisite, and women become scholars.

After celebrating writers who lurk in shadows, Le Feu Follet now shines a light on artists of brilliance.

In 1925 at the very first Salon where Art Deco equated Fine Arts, Sonia Delaunay unveiled the refined simplicity of her “simultaneous” dresses, as light as her watercolors!

 

FOCUS ON SONIA DELAUNAY

 

SELECTION

"Poem for a dress by Madame Sonia Delaunay"

L'Ange a glissé sa main
dans la corbeille l'œil des fruits
Il arrête les roues des autos
et le gyroscope vertigineux du cœur humain.

Tristan Tzara, 1923

 

BROWSE THE SELECTION

 

INVESTIGATION

LE BON GENRE : Observations sur les modes et les usages de Paris depuis le commencement du dix-neuvième siècle

The Directoire and Napoleonic eras had frivolousness in spades... French fashion’s greatest publisher Pierre de la Mésangère proved it brilliantly with his large format plates in Le Bon Genre — an encyclopedia of thrill, pleasure, and style, showcasing the colorful splendors and decadence of Parisian high society in full transformation at the turn of the century.

READ THE INVESTIGATION

 

NEW ACQUISITIONS

Henri RAPIN & Camille BOIGNARD 
Original Bonds Emission poster - 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs

Lapina Imp. • Paris [1925]

Original color lithograph poster for the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, signed in the plate "C. Boignard" and "H. Rapin," printed by Lapina.

Striking large-format original bonds emission poster for the renowned 1925 Paris International Exhibition, which gave its name to the "Art Deco" movement.

 

SEE MORE

Mikhai͏l Gorbatchev 
Memoirs

Doubleday • Londres 1996

First UK edition.

Rare inscribed copy signed by the last leader of the Soviet Union to a USSR émigré, the journalist Sam Yossman.

 

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Walt DISNEY

Signed portrait of Walt Disney

[ca. 1960] • 20,4 x 25,5 cm

Promotional portrait for Disney studios.

Rare and striking manuscript signature by "Uncle Walt" in black ink, signed directly within the image.

 

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Victor HUGO to Eugène PELLETAN

"A republic in Spain would be the simple and pure affirmation of man’s sovereignty over himself"

Hauteville House [Guernesey] • 1868

Proof copy of an appeal for a Republic in Spain following the September Revolution with a presentation inscription to literary critic and political polemicist Eugène Pelletan. Hugo harboured great hope that a Spanish republic could be decisive for peace and democracy in Europe.

One month earlier, Pelletan had published a scathing article on the Queen of Spain's departure in his newspaper La Tribune.

 

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COLLECTIVE

[JESUIT MISSION IN CHINA] Nouvelles lettres édifiantes des missions de la Chine et des Indes orientales

Adrien Le Clère • Paris 1818-1823

First edition of this continuation of the series Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, documenting events from 1767 onward in the missions led by the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (M.E.P.) in Sichuan, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Siam, and along the Coromandel Coast. 

Contemporary bindings. 

 

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Raymond QUENEAU

Petite cosmogonie portative

Gallimard • Paris 1950

First edition, press copy.

Twice inscribed and signed by Raymond Queneau to Madame Bonnet, the first in blue ink: "A madame Bonnet en sincère hommage Queneau", the asterisk referring to the second signed inscription: "complété en II II III, 131789076, ABCDEFG... Queneau". The inscription is in reference to his essay on langage also published in 1950, titled "Bâtons, chiffres et lettres" [Sticks, numbers and letters].

 

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BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT

Sur l'Anthropologie de l'Afrique française, lu à l'Académie des Sciences dans sa séance du 30 juin 1845

Paris [1845]

First edition, printed in small numbers, of this excerpt from the Magasin de zoologie, d'anatomie comparée et de paléontologie, published by M. Guérin-Méneville in October 1845.

Illustrated with 3 hand-colored plates numbered 59–61 at rear.

 

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BATAILLE & PICASSO & DESNOS & LEIRIS & CARPENTIER

Documents - Complete collection in 15 issues 

Documents • Paris 1929-1930

First edition, 15 issues abundantly illustrated with black and white photographs. Complete with the special issue "Hommage à Picasso" (No. 3, 1930) and the index for the year 1929.

Complete collection of this legendary and non-conformist magazine founded by Georges Bataille. 

 

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Armand BUDAN

La Guadeloupe pittoresque

Noblet & Baudry • Paris 1863

Very rare first edition of this album illustrated with 12 lithographs by Émile Verdier after drawings by the author (1 frontispiece and 11 plates, including one large folding plate depicting Pointe-à-Pitre).

Text and illustrations by Armand Budan.

 

SEE MORE
 
 
Le Feu Follet's Letter
Le Feu Follet's Letter
Whimsical essays, curious histories, epic enquiries, curated selections, highlighted novelties — all seasoned with a dash of humour. A bimonthly journey across the arts and letters, from the present to the past.

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Presentation copy from Pagnol to Druon, his admirer
Idealised childhood is an age-old leitmotif, but since the 20th-century it has had a name: Marcel Pagnol. No writer has better captured a child’s sensitivity and capacity for wonder. Among his most fervent admirers is another writer, who would gladly have belonged to his large Provençal family: Maurice Druon. He crowned Pagnol the blessed king of childhood. “How human you are beneath such pleasant appearances! Reading you, I now feel as though I have become one of your childhood friends. And I await the sequel to La Gloire de mon père [My Father’s Glory] as a reward. I admire you and send you a warm embrace. Maurice”
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Catholic fervour or anticlerical fever: in the land of Bossuet and Voltaire, religion is a family affair far more than an affair of state, and many a family supper threatens to be the Last, where, happily, the breaking of bread and the miracle of wine reconcile cassocked brothers with their sans-culotte cousins...
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