Istanbul (Turquie)

First edition.

Half blue shagreen, spine with four raised bands decorated with gilt floral tools within blind-ruled compartments, blind fillet borders on indigo percaline boards, boards with marginal soiling at foot, brown paper endleaves and pastedowns, modern bookplate affixed to a pastedown, contemporary binding.

Some scattered foxing, a black ink stain on the edge not affecting the text.

 

First edition.
Spine absent, boards soiled with marginal lacks, copy warped.
Rare but in poor condition.

Complete illuminated Ottoman Qur'an manuscript, 1889, 8° (13,2x18,8cm), 612 p., bound.

Complete Ottoman manuscript of the Qur'an, 612 pages written on parchment paper in black, margins ruled in black and red (8,1x13,2cm) enhanced in gilt, text entirely in naskh script on 15 lines per page with gilt and polychrome florets between verses, flanked by large illuminated floral motifs in the margins of certain leaves, finely gilt sura headings.
Customary for Qur'ans, this copy opens with an elaborately and finely hand-illuminated double-page frontispiece in gilt and deep blue. The rest of the lithographed text is hand colored in gilt and red.
The colophon indicates the copy as the work of Mustafa Nazif Kadırgalı Efendi dated 1889.
Superb Islamic full brown roan binding with a flap (mikleb), elaborately stamped in gilt with geometric motifs and an elaborate central radiant design, gilt flap spine with a palmette frieze, some leather missing to corners and rubbed edges. 2 browned pages, some foxing and soiling to margins.
Between traditional manuscript Qur'ans and printed Qur'ans, there was a brief period when lithography was used to finely imitate handwriting. In 1866, Osman Zeki Bey, an Ottoman calligrapher, opened his Matbaa-i-Osmaniye printing house in Istanbul, becoming the first publisher authorized to print Qur'ans.
A very fine copy of this Ottoman Qur'an produced at the end of the 19th century, the result of a fruitful collaboration between print and calligraphy.

First edition.
Tears and small lacks to spine, clear dampstain to front cover, rear cover marginally soiled, minor corner lacks to covers.
Rare.

First edition printed in a small number of copies of this offprint from the Journal Asiatique of March-April 1893.
Small corner losses to covers, marginally soiled, handsome interior condition.
Rare.

Handwritten poem to Kérimé « Que la volupté est triste...!» [Paroles soupirées]Handwritten poem entitled « Que la volupté est triste... ! », dedicated and offered to Kérimé. Half a page written in black ink on a leaf of headed paper from the Constantinople Péra-Palace & Summer-Palace, a total of 15 alexandrine verses.
The poem was published under the title «Paroles soupirées» in Flambeaux éteints (Edward Sansot & C^ie, 1907). This first manuscript version has several variations from the printed text. Some verses have even been totally abandoned: “Pareille au chant brisé qui vient nous décevoir,/ Avec les cierges d'or allumés dans le soir”.
Quelle tristesse après le plaisir, mon amie,
Quand le dernier baiser, plus triste qu'un sanglot,
S'échappe en frémissant de ta bouche blêmie,
Et que, mélancolique et lente, sans un mot,
Tu t'éloignes à pas songeurs, ô mon amie!
Pareille à la douleur des adieux, dans le soir,
L'angoisse qui vient de la volupté lasse!
Pareille au chant brisé qui vient nous décevoir,
Pareille au noir cortège impérial qui passe
Avec les cierges d'or allumés dans le soir...
Et je te sens déçue et je me sens lointaine...
Nous demeurons, avec les yeux de l'exilé,
Suivant, tandis qu'un fil d'or frêle nous enchaîne,
Du même regard las notre rêve envolé...
Autre déjà, tu me souris, déjà lointaine...

Provenance: Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha.



The Sappho lover and her sofa muse

Considered as a literary work in its own right, Renée Vivien's correspondence with Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha is sprinkled with very rare poems that enhance the poet's romantic passion for her oriental muse.
In spring 1904, Vivien received an unexpected letter. A mysterious young Turkish woman, living in Constantinople and who signed Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha, enthusiastically told her about a book she had just read. [...] Intrigued and at the same time flattered, Vivien responded to the unknown woman [...] This letter was to be followed by more than a hundred others and dozens of postcards to Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha. [...] During the summer of 1905, when Vivien will make a pilgrimage to Lesbos with Natalie Barney, she will absolutely stop in Constantinople to get to know the fictional (as she imaged) Kérimé. She saw her again several times, always in Constantinople, and their correspondence continued until 1908. Born in 1876, Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha belonged to the Constantinople high society. Very cultured, raised French, she shone in the salons of the Ottoman capital. She was distinguished by her real beauty [...]. This seductive creature, whom Vivien had to imagine languishing on cushions in the shade of a Bosphorus harem, had married a Turk much older than her around 1900, Turkhan-Pacha. [...] Becoming a widow, Kérimé lived in Paris, where she had the opportunity to court Natalie Barney; she died in Athens in 1948. Worldly and very beautiful, [...] Kérimé belonged to the Turkish elite [..] whose women began to change their mentality. Just like Loti's Désenchantées [...] Kérimé found it troublesome to support the old customs of her country. «I was very young and I was cloistered away and aspired only to bite all the forbidden fruits», she told Le Dantec. [...] For Vivien, Kérimé represented the mirage of the East, which had already fascinated the entire 19th century: Chateaubriand, Delacroix, Nerval, Flaubert, Loti, Barrès... Turkish romanticism then permeated French literature. In 1898 Jean Lorrain had published La Dame turque (another pasha woman...) and in 1906 Loti would publish his famous novel Les Désenchantées." (J.-P. Goujon, Tes blessures sont plus douces que leurs caresses)

This superb elegy with its "Bosphorus sultana" takes up all the elements of this aesthetic mythology in a superb sapphic reappropriation of the languor and sensuality of the fantasized East.

Exceptionally rare, the manuscripts to the lovers of this icon of modern lesbianism are missing from most public collections, with the notable exception of the Jacques Doucet collection, which includes nine poems from Vivien to Natalie Clifford Barney.

Only these four manuscript poems to Kérimé are known to date.

First edition for which no deluxe copies are mentioned.
Four corner lacks to boards, handsome interior condition.
Rare.

First edition.
Spine with lacks, tears, stains and corner lacks to boards, loose copy, rear board detached.
Rare but in poor condition.

New edition.
Tears and small lacks to spine, angular creases to dusty boards, handsome interior condition.
Rare.

First edition.
Two lacks and one stain to spine, tears and corner lacks to boards, two light dampstains to front board, some interior foxing and to boards.
Rare.

First edition.
Spine faded with two small insignificant lacks, some corner lacks to the marginally sunned boards, a fold at the head of the first leaves.
Rare.

Second edition, with some parts in first edition, known as the Vanier edition, completed on June 20, 1885, one of 50 numbered and justified copies on Holland paper by Lion Vanné, the only deluxe copies.
Half green morocco binding, spine faded and sunned with five raised bands decorated with double black compartments at whose centers a gilt paraph is repeated five times, gilt date at foot, marbled paper boards, boards marginally faded like the spine at head and foot, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, top edge gilt, elegant near-contemporary unsigned binding.
Handsome copy attractively bound.

Handwritten poem to Kérimé « Pour elle » [« Elle demeure en son palais... »]
Handwritten poem entitled « Pour elle », dedicated and offered to Kérimé. Half a page written in black ink on a leaf of headed paper from the Constantinople Péra-Palace & Summer-Palace, a total of 32 alexandrine verses.

The poem was published under the title « Elle demeure en son palais... » in Flambeaux éteints (Edward Sansot & C^ie, 1907). This first manuscript version has several variations from the printed text. Some verses have even been totally abandoned:
« Elle est indifférente, à l'égal d'une fleur / Dont la fureur ressemble aux cris du désespoir / Qu'ombragent les cyprès des morts d'Orient »


Elle habite un palais serein, près du Bosphore,
Où la lune s'étend comme en un lit nacré...
Sa bouche est interdite et son corps est sacré
Et nul amant, sauf moi, n'osa l'étreindre encore.
Des nègres cauteleux la servent, à genoux...
Ils sont humbles, avec des regards de menace,
Fugitifs à l'égal d'un éclair roux qui passe,
Leur sourire est très blanc: ils sont traîtres et doux.
[...]

J'entre le palais baigné par l'eau charmant...
Où l'ombre est fraîche, où le silence est infini,
Où, sur les tapis doux plus qu'un herbage uni,
Glisse légèrement le pas de mon amante.
Ma sultane aux yeux noirs m'attend, comme autrefois....

Des jasmins enlaceurs voilent les jalousies...
J'admire, en l'admirant, ses parures choisies,
Et mon âme s'accroche aux bagues de ses doigts.
Nos caresses ont de cruels enthousiasmes,
Dont la fureur ressemble aux cris du désespoir...
Plus tard, une douceur tombe, comme le soir,
Et ce sont des baisers de sœur, après les spasmes...
Elle redresse un pli de sa robe, en riant...
Et j'évoque son corps souple, dont je suis fière,
Auprès du mien, dans un inégal cimetière
Qu'ombragent les cyprès des morts d'Orient.

Provenance: Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha.



The Sappho lover and her sofa muse

Considered as a literary work in its own right, Renée Vivien's correspondence with Kérimé Turkhan-Pacha is sprinkled with very rare poems that enhance the poet's romantic passion for her oriental muse.
Exceptionally rare, the manuscripts to the lovers of this icon of modern lesbianism are missing from most public collections, with the notable exception of the Jacques Doucet collection, which includes nine poems from Vivien to Natalie Clifford Barney.

First edition.
Spine restored with an almond-green adhesive piece showing lacks and tears, small lacks and angular tears to boards, some foxing and light dampstaining to head of final leaves.
Rare work illustrated with two maps and two other loose maps and one engraving which have been added.

First edition published in a small number of copies and presented in typescript form.
Author's signature at end.
Minor marginal losses of no consequence to the second cover, rare.