Fresnes

First edition of Jean Genet's debut work, written at Fresnes, printed in a few copies and published at the author’s expense, which appeared clandestinely while he was serving a prison sentence for book theft. The pamphlet, thirteen pages, unbound and unpaginated, was printed on brown paper under a pink or white cover.
Our copy is housed in a half old-rose box chemise, boards of geometrically patterned paper, slipcase trimmed in old-rose box, the ensemble signed by Thomas Boichot.

« J'ai dédié ce poème à la mémoire de mon ami Maurice Pilorge, dont le corps et le visage radieux hantent mes nuits sans sommeil... ». Thus Jean Genet explained the genesis of this poem, a tribute to...

Set of 10 original photographs taken at Fresnes prison in April 1945, reproduced in Henri Calet’s Les Murs de Fresnes, except for one unpublished print. Numerous editorial notes and measurements on the versos in preparation for publication, two bearing the stamps “Bernès, Marouteau & C^ie”; black felt-tip retouching visible on five prints, pencil retouching marks on the two photographs of the food tins.

A set of images taken at Fresnes prison in April 1945, which give voice to a place where under the Occupation too many lives came to an end. These photographs reveal the mute history of the imprisonment of French and...