Paris

First edition, one of 200 service de presse (advance) copies with service de presse printed on spine, without publisher's catalogue at rear. Very first issue printed even before deluxe copies.
Rare and precious signed and inscribed copy by Louis-Ferdinand Céline to writer and lyricist Henry Jagot, known as Raoul Tabosse and Frédéric Valade.
Very discreet restorations to top spine-end, head of joint and margins of the front cover.
Born in 1858, Henri...

First edition.
A handsome copy despite small marginal foxing on the boards, a minute tear at the head of the second board.
Contributions by Lorna Rea "L'esprit souffle où il veut" translated by Odette Chauvet-Villard, Géo Norge "Poëmes", Ivan Goll "Mélusine"...
Issue illustrated with reproductions of works by Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Marie Laurencin, Victor Servranckx, Alexander Calder, Jacques Maret...

New edition illustrated with in-text drawings by Benett and Neuville. First issue with these printed portrait covers with 3 black full page illustrations for Le Tour du monde and 2 frontispieces. This type of binding was used from 1892 to 1898, with variations.
Publisher's "Portrait collé" cloth binding. Plate signed Souze, binding by Lenègre. Lenègre "e" type second cover. Attractive first cover with bright gilt decoration, a little piece missing at the corner of the portrait, 2 vertical gray traces in the world map. One split corner. Spine quite good, with some of the gilt lacking in the lighthouse beams and rubbing near the beams; spine-ends folded. Second cover with 2 pale...

Original albumen print portrait of Colette writing at her desk in her Palais Royal apartment. Photographer's blind stamp in the lower left margin, Lipnitzki studio stamp on the verso.
Humorously inscribed by Colette on the right side of the photograph: "For Vava! Do I look like I'm writing? Of course not! I'm just pretending" ("Pour Vava ! J'ai l'air d'écrire ? Pensez-vous ! Je fais semblant."); she chose to put her signature on the photograph itself, on the very paper leaves she 'prentends' to be writing on.
"Vava" is the nickname of Hilda Gélis-Didot, Colette's neighbor at the Palais-Royal. She is related to the Didots, a great family of printers, and was the...

Original portrait of Alfred Dreyfus, mounted albumen print with the stamp of the Gerschel photographic studio.
A few stains to the margins.
This famous head and shoulder portrait was taken by Gerschel, photographer at the Ecole Polytechnique. It shows young Alfred Dreyfus in his artillery uniform, wearing a kepi with three stripes and a dolman adorned with transverse rows of cords, with the number 14 embroided on the collar.

Bibliothèque de La Pléiade edition printed on Bible paper.
Publisher's binding in full brown grained sheep, orange top edge, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets.
Fine copy complete with its glassine wrapper and soft slipcase.

Pléiade library edition printed on India paper.
Publisher's bindings in full blue grained sheep, blue top edges, smooth spines decorated with gilt fillets.
Handsome complete set retaining its cellophane dust jackets, dust jackets for the first five volumes as well as its slipcases.

First edition, rare first issue copy (printing error in the Grasset imprint, original soft cover dated 1913, publisher's catalog in-fine, no table of contents) for the first volume ; first issue of A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs without statement of edition, one of about 500 copies, the 2000 later issued copies bearing a false statement of edition on the cover, pasted label "majoration temporaire cinquante pour cent" on the spine of the preserved soft cover; first editions on pur fil for the following volumes, only deluxe copies with réimposés quarto copies.
Famous misprint known as "La faute à Grasset" : most important printer's error, only present...

First edition, one of the deluxe copies on alfa paper.
Sunned spine, like most copies.
Publisher's binding after an original design by Mario Prassinos.