Le Feu Follet is an antiquarian bookshop. Despite this designation, which distinguishes us from traditional booksellers, our trade is not defined by the age of our books, but by their contribution to the cultural heritage. In this context, the expression “antiquarian book”, is not referring to books that have survived the passage of time, but instead books that time traverses, and does not exclude contemporary works by any means.

In a changing society moving from the era of reproducibility and hyper-industrialisation to dematerialisation, the book as an object is being reinstated as a symbol of the longevity of human thought, and the antiquarian book is its physical manifestation.

The distinction between an antiquarian bookshop and a new bookshop, is in our view, no longer pertinent. The opposite of “new” is really “second-hand”, which should be understood as an alternative economic model.  But in our case the antiquarian bookshop is founded on a fundamentally different idea. It is based on a premise that emerged with the invention of the printing press and relates to the underlying symbolic relationship between a written work and its support.

We don’t aim to showcase an author or disseminate a text to the greatest number. The books we offer have already stood the trial- by-fire of literary critics and the caprices of fashion with all its associated fads. Some of our authors have already taken their permanent place in the literary Pantheon, while others have been preserved by a handful of scholars.

All of our books have been read passionately by at least one of these groups. Each copy we receive has been carefully preserved, some in luxurious bindings and some plain. These have been passed down, from book lover to collector, bedside table to library, from generation to generation, often from a veteran book lover to a young book lover. If these copies have managed to survive through the decades, avoided destruction and been prized even more than later editions, it is because a special link has developed between the author and reader that places them outside the process of endless reproduction. As booksellers, our work consists of hunting down and collecting – from a multitude of books – the special books, which embody the thought process expressed on their pages.

With the arrival of the touch tablet, the idea of a book being bound to its material form might seem strange. However, since the invention of the printing press until the beginning of the 20th century all readers accepted this idea as a simple statement of fact. They, on the other hand, couldn’t have imagined today’s dichotomy. The book was not simply a support for the thought process at that time, it was the exclusive vehicle for it. The impact of a work and even its new “existence” depended on the quality of this object. In the very early years of the Renaissance, the burgeoning humanist movement would need to create a form for this object.
Due to the costs involved in publishing a book, the financial and political risks that existed, and the uncertainty of publishing as a business, booksellers were placed at the heart of one of humanity’s greatest intellectual and human endeavours from the start. Between 1455 – approximately the date of the first Bible being printed in Mainz by Gutenberg Fust & Schoeffer, almost a complete failure, leading the associates to separate and the ruin of Gutenberg – and 1500 when the invention reached maturity, printing workshops began to appear all over Europe with over ten million books being printed and sold in shops by a new skilled group of professionals.
In less than fifty years, young printing apprentices (all novices and all competing against one another) invented and perfected book design, giving the book a form that has remained almost unchanged to this day.
The title page appeared at the end of the 15th century replacing the colophon, which traditionally indicated the name of the author, editor, date and sometimes even a sort of title in the last few lines of a book. This information was not usually shown at the front of books, which usually began with a recurring formula such as, Hoc volumine continentur (this volume contains).

Placing a book’s technical information on the first page revealed the growing importance of the new political and cultural actors. The power of the latter did not go unnoticed by the State, which quickly took measures to control the spread of new ideas: retracting privileges, censorship, paper controls, prohibitions to exercise in the profession, banishment, and burning books and booksellers. In response, the latter developed new strategies of defence: pocket formats, pseudonyms, fake publisher’s addresses, cross-border distribution, and so on.
Today, the form of an antique book still constitutes one of the most precious clues to the status of the work and its relationship with society at the time. Typefaces, paper quality, book format, illustrations, the number of copies printed: publishing practices were different for an edition published for the aristocracy and a dissident pamphlet distributed in secret.

To read a book in its original and intentional, or at least accepted form, is like admiring the Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio in the chapel it was painted for. It is the only way to know that the first thing people would notice about the painting was not the face of the virgin Mary or the body of the Christ child, but actually the dirty feet of the pilgrims kneeling before them: this hypotyposis is certainly not the end purpose of the painting but it steers the viewer’s interpretation.
The same thing can be said for antiquarian books, since the original form is not accidental and it orients the reader’s interpretation and affects the way a book is received. No matter how lofty a book may be, it is always conveyed through a form that has a meaning and affects the reader’s perception as well as reflecting the society of readers. First editions by the actor and playwright, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name, Molière, were published in small duodecimo formats at low cost.

Molière was buried in a communal grave in 1682 ten years before the first collection of his complete works was published in a slightly larger format illustrated with anonymous engravings. In 1734, only fifty years later, a prestigious edition was published by Prault and printed as a quarto, illustrated by François Boucher. Today this is still considered to be one of the most beautiful 18th-century books ever published. First editions can only be found in very modest bindings of the period – unless it was rebound later – while later editions are luxuriously bound from the start with beautiful calfskin or Morocco leather covers.

The binding of books – carried out by bookbinders in accordance with the tastes and budget of each buyer – are also part of the silent dialogue between author and reader, and each copy contains the unique traces. In addition to the natural link between the book and the thought process, there is a second element that is important to booksellers: the future of the book object. The book is a multiple object because of its reproducibility. But for us, books become unique objects, each copy having its own story to tell. A copy given as a gift by the author and dedicated to a close friend or produced by an artist bookbinder, owned by a famous person or saved from a book burning, the list goes on. Of course, stories about a specific edition or copy are usually simple anecdotes that are only interesting to their owner: a sentimental value only significant in the private realm, a relationship between the reader and their book.
Still, when an aviator in exile from his country at war writes a children’s book in New-York, then leaves to fight even before it is published, ending up in a country where all his books are forbidden, and finds a copy brought back from America by a chaplain working for the resistance and dedicates it to some children he meets – one of only two copies in existence signed before he is shot down off the coast of Marseille – then the anecdote of Antoine and the two children in Algiers becomes an integral part of the history of Saint-Exupéry and the Le Petit Prince, the most widely translated and read book after the Bible. This modest second edition has become a unique and precious trace of 20th-century literary history.

The similarity between different copies sometimes makes investigative work to identify these traces and rediscover the uniqueness of a piece and its historic significance very difficult. Undoubtedly, it is the search to find unique works, lost among the profusion of books and book shelves that is one of the principle missions of our bookshop. For example, the case of a poetry book that testifies to the humanity of one of the most unjustly portrayed French revolutionaries: Guillotin. This book, is one of the rare vestiges of Guillotin’s personal book collection with a hand-written ex-libris. The book is by a German poet who was one of the first people to study the consequences of decapitation: research that inspired the deputy of parliament to defend the rights of condemned prisoners to die without undue suffering. 
Numerous secret or forbidden love stories abound in other mysterious signed copies. The jointly adulterous relationship between Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet is revealed in a dedication to his lover in the first copy – still the first edition – of Actes et Paroles [Deeds and Words] which replaces his usual lyrical flight with a surprising sadness… she had just learnt he had been cheating on her for months.

Young love, also underlies the simple, pious dedication from an old Franciscan monk to a countess: Franz Liszt to his first mistress, Adèle de la Prunarède, who cast a shadow over the relationship between the composer and his muse, Marie d’Agoult. The thwarted passion of Sartre for the young Olga, who preferred... Simone de Beauvoir. The political friendship revealed by a Balzac’s extremely rare dedicated copies, to Henry Leroy, an influent lawyer. The eminently meaningful and personal gift, the dedication copy – a signed dedication in a first edition – strips bare the intimate relationship between an author and the person the book is dedicated to.

The proud dedication by Proust in his Swann [Swann’s Way] to Lucien Descaves, an eminent member of the Académie Goncourt, proves that despite claims to the contrary, the modest Marcel hoped to obtain the prestigious literary prize as early as the publication of his first volume of Recherche [In Search of Lost Time]. The unwavering friendship between Camus and the resistance fighter and poet, René Char, in his copy of Les Justes [The Just Assassins]: “à René Char, frère de ceux-ci, dont il a fait toute la route, avec l’admiration et l’affection de son ami” [to René Char, a brother of those mentioned below, who went the whole way with them, with admiration and affection, from your friend]. The acerbic friendship between Léon Bloy and his young admirer, Georges Rouault, whose style he detested: “rien pour son art – Il n’y a pas de caricature” [for his art alone, there can be no caricature]. Céline’s literary resentment towards his early critic: “À Gonzague Truc qui me déteste...” [To Gonzague Truc who hates me...].

The bookseller’s task is not to promote a book, but to select copies, from amongst all those available, with historical and symbolic links to the text they embody. Value unveiled rather than added, so that the infinitely reproducible object, the book, can rediscover its singular value as an artwork.

Working as a literary archaeologist, the bookseller extracts a meaningful object from the profusion of books, bringing the immaterial thought process that produced that book back into the physical cultural heritage. 

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«Hoc volumine continentur»,或:何谓古书店?

在巴黎第五区的中心、法国出版业的摇篮,Le Feu Follet 书店及其网站 Edition-Originale.com 提供自1480年至今的三万册图书:这是一批涵盖一切知识领域的珍贵书籍之选,体现了他们对古书业极为个人化的理解。

«Hoc volumine continentur»……

在巴黎第五区的中心、法国出版业的摇篮,Le Feu Follet 书店及其网站 Edition-Originale.com 提供自1480年至今的三万册图书:这是一批涵盖一切知识领域的珍贵书籍之选,体现了他们对古书业极为个人化的理解。

Le Feu Follet 是一家"古书店"。

尽管这一特定称谓将我们与普通书商区别开来,我们却并不以所售书籍的年代久远来界定自己的职业,而是以它们对"文化遗产"的贡献来界定。在这里,"古书"一词所指的并非穿越了时间的书,而是被时间所穿越的书;因此,这一名称绝不排斥当代作品。

在一个继可复制性与超级工业化时代之后又迎来非物质化时代的社会里,书这一物件确立为人类思想恒久性的象征,而"古书"则确立为其物质体现。

因此,在我们看来,将古书商与新书商这两种职业对立起来,并不足够恰当。实际上,与"新"相对的只有"二手",即一种经济上的替代选择。

新书书商既是传播者,也是推荐者。他的职业并不止于展示出版界的新动态,而在于依照自己与顾客的趣味,从当下的出版物中挑选出一批文本,以或多或少精美的版本呈献出来。

二手书商同样像一位发掘才华的选拔者:除了伟大的经典之外,他还给那些未能有幸取悦同时代人的作者第二次机会;在这里,在争取即时吸引力的竞逐之外,这些作者找到了一种更适合其复杂或不合时宜之思想的时间节奏。

至于古书业,在我们看来,则出自一种根本不同的逻辑。它建立在一个承自印刷术发明的前提之上:书面作品与其载体之间存在着本质性的象征关系。

我们的使命不是让人发现某位作者,也不是把某个文本传播给最广大的读者。我们所呈现的书已经经受过批评之火的考验,也已经承受过时尚与一时激情的反复无常。于是,我们所提供的作者中,有些已永久进入文学的先贤祠,另一些则始终只为少数饱学之士所专有。

然而,他们全都曾被这些读者中的某一位满怀热情地阅读过。流传到我们手中的每一册,自那时起便被珍重地保存下来,有的被饰以华贵的装帧,有的则被朴素地保护着。此后,它们辗转相传,从爱好者到收藏家,从床头到书房,一代又一代,往往是从久经历练的藏书家传到年轻的爱书人手中。

而这些书册之所以能穿越时代、抵御毁灭、无视再版,是因为它们与其作者和读者织就了一种特殊的纽带,使它们得以摆脱无限的可复制性。

因此,我们作为书商的工作,就是在浩繁的书籍之中寻找并拣选出这些特殊的书,它们体现了自身所承载的思想。

在平板电脑的时代,认为作品可能与其物质形态相关联的想法,或许显得不合时宜。

然而,从印刷术发明直到二十世纪初,这对所有读者而言都是不言自明的事;相反,他们无法设想今日的这种二分。

那时,书并不只是思想的一种"载体",它是思想唯一的传播媒介。

作品的影响力,乃至由此而来的它新的"存在",都取决于这一物件的品质。而在文艺复兴的最初岁月里,正是整个年轻的人文主义思想必须为自己创造出一种形式。

制作一部书的成本、财务与政治上的风险、出版事业的巨大不确定性,从一开始就把书商置于人类最伟大的思想历险之一的中心。

书商这一职业在起源之时尚无今日这样的分工,它同时包含印刷商与出版商的职业。这三个行业将一直紧密相连,直到十九世纪的工业革命促成图书业各方参与者的专业化。(古书业与现代书业之间的分离不那么显而易见,要到二十世纪期间,尤其是随着廉价书的出现,才最终完成。)

1455年前后,古腾堡、富斯特与舍费尔在美因茨首次印刷了一部《圣经》,其相对的失败导致合伙人分道扬镳(以及古腾堡的破产);从这一年到1500年,即这项发明成熟期结束之时,印刷作坊已遍布整个欧洲,一百多万册书籍在这些新的知识掌握者的店铺里印制并售出。

在不到五十年的时间里,一批年轻的印刷学徒,人人都是新手,人人又互为对手,发明并完善了书,直至赋予它一种几乎沿用至今而未曾改变的形式。

最初的思想与经济之争,尤其围绕着活字的铸造展开。一边是优雅而繁复、将在德国延续数百年的哥特体字,一边是人文主义者所采用的、简洁易读、受人体比例启发的罗马体字;在这两者之间,还有许许多多试图影响读者眼睛的尝试,其中就有华美的阿尔定体(Aldine),这种倾斜的字体由威尼斯著名印刷商阿尔杜斯(Alde)发明,今天我们以其通称"斜体"(italique)来称呼它。

与此同时出现了"书名页",它发明于十五世纪末,用以取代书末题记(colophon);后者传统上在书的最后几行标明作者、出版者、日期,有时甚至还有某种书名,因为书名并不出现在书的开头,那时的书通常以诸如«Hoc volumine continentur»("本卷收有")之类的惯用语开篇。

书的技术信息就这样被隆重地安置于首页,显示出这些新的政治与文化角色所取得的重要地位。

他们的权力没有逃过国家的注意,国家很快便采取措施以控制新思想的传播:特许权、审查、纸张管制、禁止执业、流放、将书籍与书商付之一炬。作为回应,书商们发展出新的防卫策略:袖珍开本、假出版者姓名与假地址、跨境传播……

时至今日,一部古书的"形式"仍是了解作品地位及其与当时社会之关系的最宝贵的信息之一。字体、纸张品质、开本、插图、印数……面向贵族的版本与秘密流传的抗议小册子,其出版策略各不相同。

以作者所期望、或至少所认可的原初状态阅读一部作品,就如同在卡拉瓦乔为之创作的那座礼拜堂里欣赏他的《朝圣者的圣母》。唯有如此,人们才会发现,这幅作品中最直接可及的形象既不是圣母的面容,也不是圣婴基督的身体,而是朝圣者肮脏的脚底,信徒们正是跪在其前;这一活现法(hypotypose)或许并非作品的终极目的,却引出了一种"阅读方向"。古书亦是如此,它的原初形式同样并非偶然,因为这一形式引导着读者,从而也引导着读者对作品的接受。

无论一部作品具有怎样的超越性,它总是通过一个具有意义的躯体来表达;这个躯体影响着读者的感知,同时也映照出这个读者社会。

江湖艺人让-巴蒂斯特·波克兰的初版本,都是以最低成本出版的十二开小册。在他被葬入公共墓穴十年之后,1682年首次汇集的莫里哀全集开本并不更大,配的是未署名的版画。然而到了1734年,仅仅五十年之后,普罗(Prault)那部以四开本印行、由弗朗索瓦·布歇绘制插图的名贵版本,至今仍被视为十八世纪最精美的出版成就之一。前一类早期版本,若非后来经人重新装帧,便只见于十分朴素的当时装帧;而后一类版本则自问世之初,便被华丽地包裹在最上乘的小牛皮或摩洛哥山羊皮之中。

装帧由工匠依照每位买主的意愿与财力制作,它们也参与到作者与读者之间无声的对话之中,每一册书因此都带有这场对话独一无二的痕迹。

于是,在书与思想的天然联系之上,又添上了对书商而言至关重要的第二个要素:书这一物件此后的命运。

书因其可复制性而是一种多数之物。然而对我们来说,书却成为独一无二的物件,成为各有其自身历史的书册。作者题赠给亲友的本子、由装帧艺术家装帧的本子、出自显赫旧藏的本子、从焚书之火中抢救出来的本子……当然,一个版本的故事和一册书的故事,多数时候不过是些轶事,往往只与其主人有关:这就是"情感价值",它并不超出读者与其书之间私人关系的私密范围。

然而,当一位年迈的飞行员作家,流亡于战火中的祖国之外,在纽约写成一部儿童故事,随后在书尚未出版之前便重返战场,又在一个他所有著作均遭查禁的国度里,找到一册由一位参加抵抗运动的神父(aumônier)从美洲带回的本子,并把它赠给这位神父的孩子们,而这正是他在马赛外海被击落之前得以题赠的仅有的两册已知之本之一,这时,安托万与这两个阿尔及尔孩子的轶事,便与圣埃克苏佩里和《小王子》的大历史相遇了,而《小王子》是继《圣经》之后阅读人数最多、译本最多的书。于是,这册朴素的第二次印刷本,成为二十世纪文学史上独一无二的珍贵痕迹。

书册彼此相似,有时使得调查工作颇为艰难,而正是这种调查才能辨识出这些痕迹,并恢复一件藏品的独特性及其历史重要性。但这或许正是我们书店的主要动力之一,与之并列的,是对这些湮没于浩如烟海的书籍与藏书之中的原作的追寻本身。

有一册诗集便是如此,它见证了那位最受不公正诋毁的革命者吉约丹(Guillotin)的人文精神。这部书是吉约丹私人藏书极为罕见的遗存之一,带有他手写的藏书题记,出自一位德国诗人之手;这位诗人原来同时也是一位科学家,并且是第一个研究斩首之后果的人,这些研究启发了这位议员为死刑犯无痛苦而死的权利辩护。

至于阿兰-傅尼埃在《大莫纳》极罕见的豪华本之一上亲笔写给一位已婚女子的那句低调的«hommage de l'auteur»("作者敬赠"),其背后隐藏的,则是这位数月之后便被战争夺去生命的年轻作家唯一一段"两情相悦"的爱情。

另一些隐秘的或被禁止的爱情,也在谜一般的亲笔题赠之下隐约浮现:

• 双重通奸之爱:它由情人维克多·雨果写给朱丽叶·德鲁埃的这则题词所揭示;在《言行录》的第一册(永远是第一册)上,他一反惯常的抒情激昂,代之以一种出人意料的忧伤……因为她刚刚得知,他数月以来一直在背叛她。
• 青春之爱:它隐藏在一位年老的方济各会士写给一位伯爵夫人的虔诚题词的朴素之下,那是弗朗茨·李斯特与他的第一位情妇阿黛尔·德·拉普吕纳雷德(Adèle de la Prunarède)之间的爱情,这段爱情将萦绕于这位作曲家与其缪斯玛丽·达古之间的关系之中。
• 受挫之爱:萨特爱上年轻的奥尔加,而她更钟情的却是……西蒙娜·德·波伏瓦。
• "特殊的友情":科克托对拉迪盖的情谊,他借两人作品的书名做文章,以一册《Carte blanche》(《全权委托》)换取对方的《Les Joues en feu》(《燃烧的面颊》)。或者巴尔扎克的情谊,他极为罕见的题词之一便是写给友人洛朗-让(Laurent-Jan)的,两人如此亲近,以至于人们认为他们之间不止于友谊……

题赠(envoi),即人们对写在原作上的亲笔题词的称呼,是一种极富意味、极具个人色彩的馈赠,它将作者与受赠者之间的私密关系袒露无遗。

骄傲:普鲁斯特在他的《斯万》上写给龚古尔学院的显赫成员吕西安·德卡夫的题词,证明了尽管他一再否认,谦逊的马塞尔其实从《追忆》第一卷起便有志于这一奖项。

不渝的友谊:加缪在《正义者》一册上写给抵抗运动诗人勒内·夏尔:« à René Char, frère de ceux-ci, dont il a fait toute la route, avec l'admiration et l'affection de son ami. »(致勒内·夏尔,这些人的兄弟,他走过了他们的全部道路,友人谨致钦佩与情谊。)

尖刻的友谊:莱昂·布洛瓦写给他年轻的崇拜者乔治·鲁奥,而他厌恶后者的风格:« Rien pour son art - Il n'y a pas de caricature »(为他的艺术,什么也没有。没有什么漫画可言。)

文学上的怨恨:塞利纳写给最早抨击他的人:« A Gonzague Truc qui me déteste... »(致憎恶我的贡扎格·特吕克……)

思想上的解放:安德烈·纪德曾是莫里斯·巴雷斯的门徒,在严厉评判了自己的老师之后,他在《Amyntas》上给对方写下一句恭敬却决绝的«amical souvenir»("友好的纪念")。

因此,书商的工作不是为一部作品增值,而是在所有书籍之中凸显出那一册与其所承载的文本保持着既是历史性的、又是象征性的联系的书。

所以,这是被揭示的价值,而非附加的价值:书这一可无限复制之物,由此重获其作为艺术品的独特性。作为书的考古学家,书商从繁多之中提取出一件富有意义的物件,从而把书所由来的非物质思想重新引入有形的文化遗产之中。