In 2022, Thomas the Solitary, the first novel by Maurice Blanchot, was finally published thanks to the rediscovery of the original manuscript preserved at Harvard’s Houghton Library. Long thought lost for over 80 years, this foundational novel was identified and catalogued in 2016 by Librairie Le Feu Follet before being acquired by Harvard University. Discover the original manuscript and the very first in-depth, previously unpublished study of this singular work.

“For a long time, Blanchot defied the efforts of photographers and caricaturists in the literary press. Over the years, illustrations remained minimal and exceedingly rare: in 1962, L’Express depicted a hand holding a book against the backdrop of a page; in 1979, Libération printed a blank square in the middle of the page, captioned only with the name Maurice Blanchot and a quotation from The Infinite Conversation (‘a void of universe: nothing that was visible, nothing that was invisible’).” (C. Bident, Maurice Blanchot)

A reflection on Balzac and his thoughts on paper – "A host of great minds circled around the idea I wish to bring to life" – this week's selection: first editions on Japanese paper, and an investigation into a fashion magazine that never goes out of style: La Gazette du Bon Ton.

Exactly 20 years ago, the greatest literary critic of the twentieth century passed away in secret, as he had spent most of his life: away from the spotlight.Or should we describe him as the most atypical of novelists? Some will call him a freethinker, others the most ambiguous of them all. We can all agree on at least one superlative, "the most mysterious of writers" after his disappearance on February 20, 2003, making him one of the most unknown of the great intellectual figures of our time.The friends of Le Feu Follet are well aware of our attachment to this extraordinary character, whose archives and unpublished writings have been revealed through our team's extensive research.

The Gazette du bon ton was an important step in the history of fashion. Combining aesthetic demands with the physical whole, it brought together – for the first time – the great talents of the artistic, literary, and fashion worlds; and imposed, through this alchemy, a completely new image of women: slender, independent and daring, which was shared by the new generation of designers, including Coco Chanel, Jean Patou, Marcel Rochas, and so on…

"The right of the strongest..." Thus La Fontaine denounced, under the guise of the fable’s simplicity, the Machiavellian nature of our customs and the hypocrisy of our so-called "moral" values. Yet, while the voices and demands of the oppressed have often been silenced, the miracle of the printing press has enabled their dissemination and preservation over time, until they could find an echo that would restore their justice.

“For any work, there is an infinite number of possible versions.” This is how Maurice Blanchot introduced, in 1950, the new version of his novel Thomas the Obscure, “written […] from 1932 onward, submitted to the publisher in 1940, published in 1941.” Already reduced by three quarters in 1950, that first version—unavailable during Blanchot’s lifetime—has come to be regarded by many readers as a less mature stage in his writing, seemingly confirming Jean Paulhan’s witticism from 1942 about Aminadab: “What [Blanchot] writes is almost unbearable over 400 pages and perfectly beautiful in ten.” The discovery of Thomas le solitaire compels us to revise that judgment.

In a dialogue from Lost Illusions, Honoré de Balzac gives "information that will not be out of place in a work whose material existence is due as much to paper as to the press"

Join us in a deep dive into the holistic thought of the Marquis de Sade's cousin who embraced all the fields of knowledge. An accomplished scientist and tide expert, the Chevalier de Sade was also a harsh critic of Necker's economic theories. Just like his illustrious relative, he reinvented the world from the bottom of a jail...