The Nectar and the Ambrosia: Legendary Gift Ideas

First edition, one of 230 numbered copies on alfa paper, the only deluxe copies along with 45 on pur fil.
Spine slightly darkened.
Manuscript signature by Blaise Cendrars on the half-title page.

The first edition, of which there were no deluxe copies.
Publisher's full cream cloth binding, complete with its illustrated dust jacket.
Spine of dust jacket sunned and with two small stains on the back panel
Precious signed autograph inscription from André Malraux to Maurice Blanchot.
While they knew each other at the NRF, it was primarily through several major articles by Blanchot devoted to Malraux that the two men "encountered" each other. After the war, Blanchot published in Bataille's ephemeral review 'Actualité' an article on l'Espoir that allowed him "to visibly inscribe his political reversal". In 1950-51, in his double article on "Le Musée imaginaire", he formalized his own theory of the image that would permeate his future work. Confronting these two visions of art, Henri Godard writes: "Through the constancy and radicalism of its reference to death, to absence, to nothingness, [Blanchot's thought] is one pole of our reflection on art, of which Malraux could well incarnate the other" (In "L'Expérience existentielle de l'art"). A polarity that could only bind Blanchot to Malraux, whose tutelary figure would be invoked one final time at the end of his last narrative, "l'Instant de ma mort": "Later, having returned to Paris, he met Malraux. The latter told him that he had been taken prisoner (without being recognized), that he had managed to escape, while losing a manuscript.... What does it matter! Only the feeling of lightness remains, which is death itself or, to put it more precisely, the instant of my death henceforth always pending."
Rich iconography.
Spine of dust jacket slightly sunned as is often the case and with two marginal stains at the head of the back panel.

First edition, one of 420 numbered copies on pure linen paper.
Handsome copy

The first edition, of which there were no deluxe copies.
Minor stains of no consequence on the edges, handsome copy complete with its wraparound band.
Signed autograph inscription by Bernard Giraudeau to Nadine Nimier, wife and widow of Roger Nimier, with a drawing representing a bouquet of marsh plants.

Autograph postcard signed by Maurice Béjart addressed to André-Philippe Hersin, written in blue ballpoint pen on the verso of a color photographic reproduction of the citadel of Methoni (Greece).
"Ma nouvelle compagnie me suit dans mon voyage solitaire. Oui il y a encore des lieux ici que le tourisme n'a pas touché. Je vous embrasse - Maurice" ["My new company follows me in my solitary journey. Yes there are still places here that tourism has not touched. I embrace you - Maurice"]
Journalist, dance critic and editor-in-chief of Les Saisons de la danse, Hersin was a great defender of Béjart's choreographic style and devoted laudatory articles to him in his magazine as well as monographic fascicles of his work.

First edition, admirably illustrated with 201 plates and 120 vignettes by Grandville. This first volume correctly has the first third of the work printed on tinted paper while the rest is on white paper, a characteristic of the first printing; most copies are from a second printing as the leaves are also white like the rest of the work. Moreover, Hetzel's publisher's preface, usually absent, is present here before the prologue. Most copies begin directly with the prologue. The frontispiece of volume 1 has been placed facing p. 32, the engraved half-title entitled Scène de moeurs serving as frontispiece; this half-title is often absent from most copies. The frontispiece and engraved title of volume 2, as well as an engraved half-title also entitled 2e partie have been preserved without the title page of the second volume which has not been bound in this copy. These 2 half-titles, in the first volume Scène de moeurs, in the second volume 2e partie are very often absent from copies.
Near-contemporary half red shagreen bindings with corners. Spines with raised bands with 3 decorated compartments, gilt title and volume number. Separation fillets on boards. Combed edges, echoing the pattern of the endpapers. Signs of rubbing. On the upper board of volume 1, a 2 cm area exposing the cardboard. Superb freshness of the paper, completely free from foxing.
Handsome copy.
This famous publication needs no introduction, a satire of contemporary Parisian society under the Second Empire, an enterprise due to Hetzel, who under the pseudonym Stahl signed several texts and commissioned texts from the most famous writers of the time: Balzac, Musset, Sand, La Bedollière... The last chapter recounts the imprisonment of the various writers who can be seen in enclosures at the Jardin des plantes, where we see Grandville from behind drawing them. One of Grandville's great works of imagination, full of verve and fantasy.

New edition of the French translation, one of 50 numbered copies on Japan paper, deluxe printing.
Handsome copy.
Work illustrated with wood engravings in headpieces and tailpieces by Louis-William Graux.

First issue illustrated edition with twelve original etchings by Edouard Chimot. Edition of 576 copies. This copy, one of 100 on Van Gelder Holland laid paper containing the color and black and white states of each figure. Chimot's illustration celebrates the sapphic loves of Bilitis.
Unique copy, expanded with an original signed drawing by Edouard Chimot and a quadruple suite on Japan paper of 8 different etchings from the edition's illustration: 1. Linear state, unreduced plate; 2. Linear state, unreduced plate with remarques; 3. In black, reduced plate; 4. Final state in colors. This quadruple suite is perhaps the one announced in the justification for the 40 hors-commerce copies. Being larger in dimensions than the book, it gives the copy its grand format. To fill the void at the foot, paper tabs have been mounted on hinges. Dimensions of the original book, 20x25, of the drawing 21.5x31.5cm, the Japan suite in the same format as the drawing.
Doublure binding in full caramel morocco with an important continuous gilt and mosaic Art Deco decoration on the covers and spine, signed at the bottom of the pastedown Marie-Madeleine Lorthiois. Teal blue morocco pastedowns with gilt and mosaic decoration, black and gold silk endpapers, double endpapers of silvered marbled paper, gilt fillet on the leading edges, gilt engine-turned headcaps, edges gilt on deckled edges, covers and spine preserved.
Half-caramel morocco chemise with flaps bearing gilt title on spine, and a matching bordered slipcase. Rubbing marks on the slipcase, one rubbing mark at the head of the chemise.
Personal copy of the binder and bibliophile Marie-Madeleine Lorthiois, with her ex-libris label.
Magnificent binding, "One of the finest by Marie-Madeleine Lorthiois" (Christian Galantaris).

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.

New edition, one of 50 numbered copies on Japan paper, deluxe issue.
Handsome copy.
Work illustrated with wood engravings in head- and tailpieces by Henri Chapront.

First edition printed with 440 numbered copies.
Work illustrated with 7 wood engravings by Frans Masereel.
Pubslisher's binding in half wove-style paper boards with small corners, top edge gilt, ex-libris glued to a paste-down endpaper.
Rare handwritten presentation signed by Stefan Zweig to writer Max Spanier who disappeared during the hell of the Holocaust: “Im herzlicher Erkenntlichkeit” (“With sincere gratitude”).

Autograph letter signed by Pierre Louÿs, addressed to Georges Louis. Four pages written in blue ink on four sheets.
Handsome letter addressed to his brother Georges Louis with whom Pierre Louÿs maintained a very intimate relationship and whom he considered as his own father.
The question of Pierre Louÿs's real father's identity still fascinates biographers today: "His father, Pierre Philippe Louis, [...] had married in 1842 Jeanne Constance Blanchin, who died ten years later after having given him two children, Lucie and Georges. In 1855, he remarried Claire Céline Maldan, and from this union was born, in 1857, a son, Paul; then, in 1870, our writer, who received the first names Pierre Félix. This late birth, the differences in character between father and son, the former's disaffection toward the latter, the profound intimacy that always reigned between Louÿs and his brother Georges, all this has led certain biographers and critics to suspect that the latter was in reality the writer's father. The exceptionally intimate and constant relationship that Pierre and Georges maintained between them throughout their lives could be an argument in this sense. Of course, no irrefutable proof has been discovered, and probably never will be. Nevertheless, certain letters [...] are quite troubling. In 1895, for example, Louÿs writes gravely to his brother that he knows the answer to 'the most poignant question' he could ask him, a question he has had 'on his lips for ten years.' The following year, at the height of Aphrodite's triumph, he thanks Georges effusively and ends his letter with this sentence: 'Not one of my friends has a FATHER who is to him what you are to me.' Arguing from the close intimacy between Georges and Claire Céline during the year 1870, and from the jealousy that the father never ceased to show toward his younger son, Claude Farrère did not hesitate to conclude in favor of Georges Louis. And what to think of this dedication by Louÿs to his brother on a deluxe copy of the first edition of Pausole: To Georges, his eldest son / Pierre." (Jean-Paul Goujon, Pierre Louÿs)
This letter was written after the First World War: "The project to open the Panthéon to heroes who offered everything to the Fatherland, even losing their name for her, is excellent. And it would be, for the archbishopric of Paris, an unhoped-for opportunity to spontaneously render to our great dead of the crypt the respects that it alone in the world denies them. It would thus repair an error that has lasted too long for its glory. Cemeteries are deconsecrated. No theological reason can attribute to them a more religious character than to the basement of a monument surmounted by a colossal cross and sanctified by ashes." Indeed, in November 1920, Charles Dumont, the general budget reporter, expressed his wish to bring the unknown soldier into the Panthéon. Finally, only the ceremony took place there and the remains of the most famous of the combatants remained, as everyone knows, under the Arc de Triomphe. The only soldier to join the Panthéon, Maurice Genevoix, would not enter until a hundred years later, on November 11, 2020.
Louÿs concludes his letter with a very handsome tribute to the writer he has always admired: "One is ill-advised to forbid the faithful such a pilgrimage. They do it. For immense humanity, the earth where Hugo's corpse lay down is holy ground."

Original etching by Giacometti printed on japon and created for the work Feuilles éparses in homage to René Crevel.
Handsome copy.

Original print by Jean Arp printed on japon and created for the work Feuilles éparses in homage to René Crevel.
Handsome copy.

Rare first edition decorated with ornamental headpieces, letterheads and culs-de-lampe.

Posterior binding in full red morocco, Jansenist spine, gilt date at the foot, marbled endpapers, frame of gilt roll-tooling on the pastedown endpapers, all edges gilt.
A very beautiful copy of one of the most famous plays in the French repertoire. It was played for the first time on 13 December 1669 at the Hôtel de Bourgogne and received a mixed reception. At the head of this edition is a preface by the playwright responding to his critics:

“Of all the works that I have given to the public, there is none
that attracted more applause and nor more critics that this one. [...] What is missed by the spectators may be noticed by the readers.”

Autograph letter signed by Georges Clémenceau addressed to a friend. One and a quarter pages written in black ink on a double sheet with letterhead from the International Palace of Mont-Dore-Les-Bains dated August 25, 1909. Folds inherent to mailing.
Clemenceau, then taking thermal baths at Mont-Dore-les-Bains, writes: "Quand votre aimable invitation m'est arrivée à Carlsbad j'avais un engagement déjà pris." ["When your kind invitation reached me in Carlsbad I already had a prior engagement."]
Charming and very aesthetic missive.

Illustrated edition with 34 original color compositions by Albert Robida engraved by Bertrand and printed in 115 numbered and nominative copies on vélin du Marais.
Full red morocco binding, spine with four raised bands studded with black dots and decorated with triple compartments (two gilt and one black), covers framed with triple gilt fillets and a black morocco fillet, marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns, pastedowns decorated at corners with stylized gilt floral motifs enhanced with brown mosaic morocco pieces forming their petals, covers and spine preserved, all edges gilt, red morocco-edged slipcase, marbled paper boards, white felt lining, elegant contemporary binding dated 1903 and signed Meunier.
A very handsome copy superbly executed.

Autograph letter signed by George Sand addressed to Gustave Flaubert. Two pages written in black ink on a double sheet bearing, at the head of the first page, the sender's dry stamp.
This letter was published in the complete correspondence of George Sand established by Georges Lubin.
Fine letter written by George Sand a few months before her death and addressed to her lifelong friend, Gustave Flaubert.
The writer wishes to offer her friend a seat so he may attend the revival of her play Le Mariage de Victorine : "Je t'écris en courant ce matin parce que je viens de recevoir de Mr Perrin avis de la 1ère représentation de la reprise du Mariage de Victorine une pièce de moi au théâtre français. Je n'ai ni le temps d'y aller ni l'envie de partir comme cela au pied levé, mais j'aurais voulu y envoyer quelques amis et il ne m'offre pas une seule place. Je lui écris une lettre qu'il recevra demain et je le prie de t'envoyer au moins un orchestre." ["I'm writing to you hurriedly this morning because I've just received notice from Mr Perrin of the first performance of the revival of Le Mariage de Victorine, a play of mine at the Théâtre Français. I have neither the time to go nor the desire to leave like that at a moment's notice, but I would have liked to send some friends and he doesn't offer me a single seat. I'm writing him a letter which he will receive tomorrow and I ask him to send you at least an orchestra seat."]
Letters from the correspondence between George Sand and Gustave Flaubert are renowned and highly sought after.

Le Panorama des boudoirs, ou l'Empire des Nairs
One of the first great but almost unknown feminist books, admired by Schiller, Goethe, Godwin, Burr and which influenced Carlisle, Percy and Mary Shelley, Suzanne Volquin and Flora Tristan.

First edition of an extraordinary rarity, with a new title page with the Pigoreau address and enriched with four color-enhanced frontispieces, including one folding.

Contemporary bindings in half blonde sheep, spines decorated with gilt finishing tools and fillets and title pieces and volume labels in red morocco, marbled paper boards. A tiny worm hole at the foot of the first volume, the joint at the top of the outer board of which is very slightly split.

This long novel, made up of an erotic collection, is actually one of the most important feminist texts of the early 19th century. Despite a chaotic editorial adventure heavily hampered by censorship, this work written in French by a young Englishman, claiming to be a follower of Mary Wollstonecraft, will have a considerable influence on some of the most prominent European minds, including Percy and Mary Shelley, Goethe, Schiller, Aaron Burr, Thomas Carlyle and Flora Tristan.

Although it was published in three versions, German, French and then English, each one being a complete rewriting of the work by the polyglot author, this major and subversive work was very quickly removed from bookshop catalogs, and its author disappeared from literary history from 1840 to the end of the 1970s. “Today, after having long been known only by Shelley specialists, Lawrence begins to gain visibility within work on English radicalism. [...] He features prominently among the radical English feminists of the 1790s and [...] is considered as one of the precursors, with Shelley and Owen, to the fight against marriage and for sexual reform.” (Anne Verjus, Une société sans pères peut-elle être féministe ? L'Empire des Nairs de James H. Lawrence.)
Despite dozens of editions published in the 19th century, we have not found any copy offered on the international market.

Lawrence was barely 18 years old when he wrote a first essay on the 'system' of the Nairs, a matrilineal society situated on the Malabar Coast, in India, in which marriage and paternity had been abolished. Enthused by the critical success his essay encountered, in 1800 James Lawrence wrote a first novel version illustrating his thesis. On reading the manuscript, Friedrich von Schiller would have encouraged him to translate it into German. It is, therefore, in this language that, in 1801, the first version of the novel was published under the title Das Paradies der Liebe.

Present in France in 1803, James Lawrence became a prisoner like the majority of the English and was then held at Verdun for several years. It was under these circumstances that he started the complete rewriting of his novel directly into French. It was entitled L'Empire des Nairs, ou le Paradis de l'amour and was published in 1807 by Maradan, the publisher of Wollstonecraft and Hays.
Barely off the press, the work was seized by the police, considered “detrimental to good morals”. The copies were returned only on the condition that the entire edition was exported. The work was then distributed in Germany and in Austria where he had Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as an ambassador, whom Lawrence met in 1799, when the romantic poet invited him to Weimar for the performance of Voltaire's Mahomet. In his memoirs, Frédéric Soret will report Goethe's criticism of his friend's work: “According to Goethe, this is the work of a madman with a great mind and he would pay much more attention to Lawrence's writing if his approach to gender relations had not become a sort of fixed idea.” (Soret, Conversations avec Goethe, 1932) The friendship between the two men will not be affected by this “obsession” and in an 1829 letter to Thomas Carlyle, Goethe again referred to Lawrence as a “long-time friend”. Goethe was also the sponsor of the only portrait of J. Lawrence, undertaken at the philosopher's request by Johann Joseph Schmeller.

The first English version, “translated, with considerable alterations, by the author” was published in London in 1811 with a much more explicit title than the French version: The Empire of the Nairs; or, The Rights of Women. An Utopian Romance, in Twelve Books. It was republished in 1824 with a new title: The Empire of the Nairs; or, the Panorama of Love, Enlivened with the Intrigues of Several Crowned Heads; And with Anecdotes of Courts, Brothels, Convents, and Seraglios; The Whole Forming a Picture of Gallantry, Seduction, Prostitution, Marriage, And Divorce in All Parts of the World.

In France, it was not until 1814, after the fall of Napoléon, that Maradan was authorized to sell his copies repatriated from abroad, of which he replaced the title page, nonetheless specifying the date of the completed printing 1807 at the foot (erroneously printed “1087”). Even after the lifting of the censorship, distribution was so modest that today there are no copies with the 1807 date, and only a few rare 1814 copies in the major European and American institutions.

Indeed, in 1817, Pigoreau, Maradan's heir, still held enough copies to consider a new sale. (Quérard announced 1816, but this was clearly an error) He decided to use a ruse. Taking the original 1807 copies, he again changed the title page and replaced it this time with a very suggestive title: Le Panorama des boudoirs which it illustrates in frontispieces of four erotic engravings superbly enhanced in color, thus insinuating a completely different literature.
The first French edition published, therefore, under three separate title pages in 1807, 1814 and 1817. After a ban, an expatriation, a first resale, it is only at the price of this last subterfuge that the final copies of this too progressive work were sold. This idea will be weakened in several ways since in 1831 the Baron d'Hénin publishes a 16-page rewriting of the text with religious emphasis: Les Enfants de Dieu ou la Religion de Jésus réconciliée avec la philosophie (incidentally, he announces in the preface that the copies of the first edition are still available). Then, in 1837, the novel is modified again by the author and this time appears with a vaudeville title: Plus de maris ! plus de pères ! ou le Paradis des enfants de Dieu.

In fifty years, this multifaceted work has known at least seven publications in French – and a dozen in all three languages. However, we have been able to reference only two copies that have been put up for sale of the French edition (one from 1814 and one 1817), presented as erotic works following the faulty notice of Gay-Lemonnyer's Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à l'amour.
These editorial shifts as well as the almost total disappearance of the copies and the erasure of this author of literary history, testify to the obstacles raised in the face of the emergence of a consciousness which would become the challenge of centuries to come: the necessary and still unfinished struggle for equality and rights for women.

If France chooses to simply ban the work by invoking its immorality and the danger it represents for French readers, England, already grappling with the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, authorises the publication of this new red-hot book, but unleashes criticism. In 1811, The Critical Review devotes several scathing pages, expecting that its readers, and especially its female readers, reject with “degust and indignation” a text so “absurd, improbable, indecent, immoral and only good for the fire”.

Thus, thanks to these manoeuvres the work will pass almost unnoticed by the general public, despite international distribution. The circulation of Lawrence's novel will, therefore, be restricted, but its influence will be major in progressive intellectual circles.

The first convert was no doubt the son-in-law of Mary Wollstonecraft, the poet Percy Shelley. Part of his work, in particular Queen Mab (1813), Laon and Cythna (1817) and Rosalind and Helen (1819), would be inspired by this praise of free love and even more specifically some of the novel's scenes. Perhaps he recommends reading it to his new conquest and future wife, the very young Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft who cites the work in her diary of 27 September 1814 and in her reading list in 1814, that is to say, just after her meeting with Percy Shelley.

Far from sharing the enthusiasm of her young companion, the young 17-year-old girl is very critical of James Lawrence's work. The future Mary Shelley is no less deeply moved by this novel which will be of major significance in the writing of her masterpiece, Frankenstein. In his study, The Paradise of the Mothersons: “Frankenstein” and “The Empire of the Nairs”, published in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, (1996), D. S. Neff analyses James Lawrence's influence over Mary Shelley and shows “that a close reading of both novels reveals that even though Mary appears to have borrowed some key plot and thematic elements from Nairs, she nevertheless felt compelled to write an “anti-Nairs”, a monstrous parody of Lawrence's romance, whereas Percy Shelley used Nairs as a source of inspiration for his poems written during the writing of Frankenstein.”

Anne Verjus, for her part, recounts the many other effects of this publication: “The American Aaron Burr, a hero of the War of Independence, a competitor to Jefferson in the 1800 presidential election, and also an admirer of Wollstonecraft's educational principles, recounts in his travel journal that, during his stay in London, he had the book loaned to him by his friend [the philosopher William] Godwin, [father of Mary Shelley and friend to Lawrence since 1796]. After having spent two nights reading it, he went to Lawrence's home to discuss it, concluding that they will certainly see each other again. Lawrence, flattered by such a visit, recounts that the American invited him to return with him to the United States to establish a Naira republic. On the other hand, Burr having recommended it to his friend Mrs Thorpe, was told that, although she admired the liberality of his ideas on the education of women, it was an “abominable” system and that no one would certainly want such rights for women. Several years later, at the very end of 1828, The Lion by Richard Carlile published large extracts of the introduction to L'Empire des Nairs. According to specialists on Carlile, he would have read L'Empire des Nairs well before publishing these extracts. Many details suggest that he was inspired by Lawrence in writing his book Every Woman's book in 1826.”

Finally, it is undoubtedly on the Saint-Simon feminists that James Lawrence will exert the greatest influence, leaving many marks in their writing, as noted by Anne Verjus. Thus in 1832, Suzanne Volquin described L'Empire des Nairs at length in L'Apostolat des femmes; in 1833, Claire Demar quotes the novel four times in Ma loi d'avenir. Similarly, in 1834, Mrs E.A. Casaubon in Le Nouveau Contrat social, ou Place à la femme, reproduced a large extract of the 1831 version of Les Enfants de Dieu, while Flora Tristan (the famous feminist, socialist and Gauguin's grand-mother), invoked Lawrence in a petition in 1838 (petition against the death penalty, To the members of the Chamber of Deputies).

Despite the lineage of his thoughts on the first feminists and, generally, on the most prominent representatives of the progressive European intelligentsia in the early 19th century, almost nothing is known of this early defender of girls' right to education and the recognition of gender equality.
The unusual editorial history of this work, from its primary prohibition to its multiple distortions and its slow but inexorable disappearance from memory, is no doubt as instructive as the ideas defended by its author on the phallocrat power at work in society.
And it would be wrong to believe that 200 years after its publication, James Lawrence's text, advocating the desecration of marriage, filiation and romantic relations, has lost its subversive power: “Well! Let this word 'father' be removed from our institutions, and be marked with a sign of reform, as well as those of husband and spouse, let them be only preserved in our dictionaries to explain the usages and remind us of the simplicity of past centuries. Let every child be left in the care of its mother, and let him have no other heritage than that which she will pass on to him. May every women be freed without restriction from the domination of men, and be able to exercise all the rights that they exclusively have enjoyed until now. May she be able to change lovers at will, and take them indiscriminately from all classes of society.”

His 71-page long preliminary speech proves to be a real essay setting out his project of an egalitarian society and denouncing a system in which, despite perfect intellectual parity, women are raised more than educated in order to keep them in an artificial inferiority: “The many needleworks [...] will never allow her ideas to flourish. She sees no other men than her masters. [...] The moment finally comes when she enters the world; but freedom, so dear to all hearts, flees before her like a shadow: it exists even less for her than for a 10-year-old boy. [...] Man has decided, as absolute master, that ignorance would consolidate his authority [...] Now, if she is born with as much mind as he, why should woman obey man, rather than man obey woman? It is true that, according to Moses, during the first centuries she was regarded only as the servant of her proud partner: but if instead of having been written by a man, the bible had been written by a woman, we could have had a very different narrative.”

Exceptional and extremely rare first edition of one of the first great feminist works of the 19th century, which, despite its considerable influence, was perfectly erased from literary and intellectual history. The few copies remaining in major institutions are mostly classified in the department of erotic books!

First edition of the French translation, one of 50 numbered copies on Madagascar paper, deluxe issue.
A handsome copy.

Wedding announcement of Boris Vian and Ursula Kübler. On the left panel is mounted a photograph of Vian and his wife in their famous 1911 Brasier Torpedo.
Included is the envelope written in Boris Vian's hand in purple ink. Manuscript calculations in green ink on verso.
Passionate about mechanics and driving, Boris Vian owned numerous car models; his favorite was undoubtedly his 1911 Brasier Torpedo, a former Marne taxi which he acquired in spring 1950.
The marriage finally took place on February 8, 1954 at the town hall of the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

First edition, one of 220 numbered copies on vélin blanc du Marais, deluxe copies.
A rare and handsome copy despite a tiny repaired tear at the head of the spine.

Edition illustrated with a watercolor and drawings by Gus Bofa, one of 100 numbered copies on B.F.K. de Rives paper.
Full red morocco binding, spine with five raised bands set with black fillets, endpapers and pastedowns of moiré effect paper, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, upper corners slightly bumped without damage.
Two small rubs to two raised bands.
Handsome copy attractively bound.

Autograph letter signed by Lucien Daudet addressed to Lucien Descaves; six pages written in black ink on a double sheet and a single sheet. Creases inherent to the mailing.
Fine and long unpublished letter addressed to Lucien Descaves, to whom Daudet had not given news for two years. He outlines broadly the tragic events that occurred since: "Since that time, I remained in Paris, I witnessed the days of June 40 [...] I undertook, to forget my life, to write a life of my father [...] Then in August, I understood that I was very ill [...] I was operated on, reoperated on, in November I was dying, I knew nothing anymore, then a phlebitis. [...] A month later I learned of my brother's death."
All these sad misadventures do not prevent him from thinking about the Goncourt Academy which he evokes at length in this missive. Indeed, his brother Léon Daudet having died a few months earlier, the academicians are seeking a successor and Lucien's name figures among the favorites: "As soon as the newspapers mentioned my name for the Goncourt Academy, I was very embarrassed." He nevertheless states the reasons why he does not wish to join the ten: "Because I could not appear, my brother being dead, to say 'my turn' [...] And finally, it is difficult to write when one is the son of Alphonse Daudet, but when in addition one is the brother of Léon Daudet [...] the game was lost in advance for me." It is finally La Varende who will be elected on the recommendation of René Benjamin and Sacha Guitry and despite his certainties ("I would present myself one day or another to the Academy") Lucien Daudet will never join the prestigious jury.
Lucien has attached to his first letter another sheet in which he comments on Germaine Beaumont's latest novel: "One must not have the slightest idea of what a novel is, a true novel, to not have understood that for years no one had written a novel of such density." This literary consideration is the occasion for Daudet to address the Céline case, who - still in France at this time - has just published his third pamphlet Les Beaux Draps: "You, I, a few others loved Céline when he had great talent. And then all the imbeciles discovered him when he imitated himself and it was no longer anything but the waffle iron..."

First edition printed in 162 copies, ours one of 150 numbered copies on tinted vellum, the only issue with 12 on Whatman.
Bradel binding in half emerald green morocco, smooth spine stamped with gilt title lettered lengthwise, pebbled paper boards, front cover preserved, binding signed P. Goy and C. Vilaine.
Signed autograph inscription from André Gide "au poëte Angiolo Orvieto en témoignage de sympathie" ["to the poet Angiolo Orvieto in testimony of sympathy"].
Rare testimony to his relationship with Angiolo Orvieto, Florentine poet and librettist, who founded the periodical Il Marzocco in 1896, and devoted a study to the writer the following year.
The two poets were united by their admiration for Chopin, who inspired Orvieto to write an opera and Gide his Notes sur Chopin (1948).

Illustrated edition, one of 175 copies printed on japon impérial with 3 states, one in colors with remarques, one in colors without remarques and one in a single color. The drawing, announced in the justification, is absent but our copy is enhanced with two color proofs with remarques printed on old paper and justified in pencil.
Work illustrated, in first printing, with 15 watercolors by René Lelong, engraved on copper with wash and stipple by Delzers and printed in colors with registration.
Full France blue morocco binding, smooth spine, covers decorated with silver-colored paper plates on three sides, France blue morocco enhanced with a septuple gilt fillet with return of the silver paper plates framing three sides of the pastedowns, the latter and endpapers of marbled paper, original covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt on deckled edges, slipcase bordered with blue morocco, binding signed by J. Van West.
Superb copy executed in a charming Art Deco binding.

First edition, one of 50 numbered copies on pure thread paper, the only deluxe copies after 10 Holland.
Full black morocco binding, spine with four raised bands, front board decorated with a beautiful repousse calf plaque representing Joan of Arc in profile with her signature and arms engraved in the upper corners, double fillet stamped in blind framing the plaque, painted and gilt paper pastedowns lined with black morocco decorated with rich gilt dentelle framing on three sides, painted and gilt paper endpapers, gilt dentelle on the leading edges and headcaps, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt on deckled edges, elegant unsigned binding.
Fine copy established in a rare repousse leather binding.

Edition illustrated with 45 original watercolors in colors by Pierre Brissaud reproduced by pochoir, one of 403 numbered copies on Holland paper.
Bradel binding in half navy blue morocco with corners, smooth spine decorated with two compartments of red mosaicked morocco, date and place gilt at foot, marbled paper boards, endpapers and pastedowns of moiré effect paper, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, slipcase edged with navy blue morocco, boards covered with two different marbled papers marked by a red morocco division, elegant unsigned binding.
Handsome copy pleasantly established.

Edition illustrated with color images by Jean-Paul Quint, one of 580 numbered copies on handmade laid paper.
Publisher's binding in full brown morocco-grained shagreen, spine with two raised bands decorated with blind-stamped motifs, covers entirely decorated with blind tooling depicting figures and animals, top edge gilt, uncut, original wrappers preserved, joints slightly cracked at head with minimal lacks, binding signed by Kieffer.
Occasional light foxing at foot of some leaves without consequence.
Handsome copy perfectly bound by René Kieffer.

Original black and white lithograph, third state, created for Le Charivari and printed on heavy paper. Signed on plate.
Delteil, 2498
Monogrammed stamp "AB" from the collection of Dr Albert Bloch on verso of plate.
Some foxing near left margin.

Complete autograph manuscript on a perforated sheet of 25 lines written in blue ink for the song entitled "J'étais amoureux", with some deletions, additions and corrections.
We include, on a perforated sheet the complete typescript of "J'étais amoureux".
Fine collection relating to this song which was never performed.
Provenance: Fondation Boris Vian.

First edition illustrated with fifty-nine engravings on copper and wood by Auguste Lepère, one of 220 numbered copies on pure Arches laid paper with the Nantes watermark, the only issue, this one printed specially for M. Join-Lambert.
Full tawny calf binding, spine with five raised bands, date at foot, boards richly decorated with a broad design of compartments, interlacing and shells inlaid with green, mahogany and black calf in the Renaissance taste, silk moiré doublures framed with seven gilt fillets, endpapers of matching silk, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, slipcase with rubbed and peeling headcaps, Art Nouveau binding signed with the monogram DLR at foot of first board.
Our copy is enhanced with one of the destroyed wood-engraved plates from the first series "Rue des Barres - Rue Grenier sur l'eau - Sortie de l'exposition" given to the Nantes museum.
Rare and very handsome copy perfectly executed in an elegant binding with Art Nouveau decoration.

First edition, one of 109 numbered copies on Lafuma Navarre paper and reimposed in Tellière quarto format, deluxe copy.
Half caramel morocco with corners, spine with five raised bands, gilt date at foot, marbled paper boards, endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, printed bookplates on endpapers, binding signed Devauchelle.
Handsome copy elegantly bound.

First printing of the 109 color miniatures by Henry Lemarié, one of the numbered copies on Rives laid paper for each volume.
Small traces of soiling on the inner flaps of the slipcases which also have small paper lacks to the corners.
Handsome and rare set, lacking three of its slipcases, which was originally intended to comprise six tales but of which only three were published.

Edition decorated with 37 original color compositions, plus one on the cover, by Maurice Lalau created for the first time using the graphichromie process invented by the artist, including one on the cover, a title vignette and 37 in the text.
Printing begun in 1926 was completed on November 15, 1928.
Unique print run limited to 150 numbered copies on vélin Madagascar-Lafuma.
Slipcase split at foot, joints of the chemise spine with scratches.
Our copy includes the complete suite of 37 black illustrations on vellum.
Rare and handsome copy.

First edition, one of 125 numbered copies on Vidalon paper.
Half black morocco binding with corners, spine with five raised bands, gilt date at foot, gilt fillets on marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, binding signed Laurent.
Handsome copy beautifully executed.
Work illustrated, as frontispiece, with an original lithograph by Edouard Vuillard representing the author.

Edition illustrated with 31 original compositions by Gaston Vuillier etched by Omer Bouchery, one of 100 numbered copies on Japan paper containing the etchings in two states.
Full brown morocco binding, spine with five raised bands decorated with triple compartments as well as gilt fillets, gilt date at foot, gilt roulettes on headcaps, frame of quadruple gilt fillets on covers, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, frame of gilt dentelle on pastedowns, double gilt fillets on leading edges, covers preserved, top edge gilt, superb full morocco binding signed by Blanchetière.
Superb copy.
Copy established in a very handsome full morocco binding by Blanchetière.

First edition, illustrated with a frontispiece, a map (route from Paris to Versailles) and numerous wood engravings in the text by Trimolet, Daubigny, Français, etc. in the romantic manner (text frames, tailpieces, headers, in-text illustrations...). On pages 316, 317, 341 and 412 are empty frames for engravings that were never published. Bibliographers make no distinction between the same work published by Everat printing house in 1839 and this printing by Schneider and Langrand.
Full old red shagreen binding. Spine with false raised bands decorated in gilt compartments. Large ornamental cold-stamped plate on boards with rich frame. Edges gilt. White watered silk endpapers with some stains. Rubbing to upper joint with tiny crack at tail extending 0.5cm. Very fresh throughout with very rare foxing.
Very handsome copy.
Red morocco armorial bookplate of Victor Arthur Des Acres de L'aigle, Marquis de l'Aigle 1809-1893 (Three eagles displayed, marquis crown).
This beautiful publication, perfectly executed, describes and narrates everything that was then known about Versailles, both from the perspective of fine arts and architecture and the lives of those who lived there.

Edition illustrated with drawings by Edmond Baudoin.
Handsome copy.
Publisher's soft binding.
Our copy is enriched with an autograph inscription and original signed drawing by Edmond Baudoin in black ink depicting a woman's face.

Autograph postcard signed addressed to Jani Brun, written in black felt-tip pen on the reverse of a humorous drawing. Envelope included.
The writer gives news of his life in his house in Sommières to his French lover: "Je me force de [sic] travailler un peu - c'est à dire je tripote des livres, des nuages, des femmes, et des calembours [...] Il pleut. Je coupe du bois aussi et bientôt il faut que je ramasse les mûres. Much love, Larry D" ["I force myself to work a little - that is to say I fiddle with books, clouds, women, and puns [...] It's raining. I also chop wood and soon I must pick blackberries. Much love, Larry D"].

After many years spent in Greece, Egypt and Rhodes, the traveling writer Lawrence Durrell was forced to flee Cyprus following popular uprisings that led the island to its independence from the British crown. Rich only with a shirt and a typewriter but crowned with the success of his novel Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Les citrons acides), he arrived in France in 1956 and settled in the Languedoc village of Sommières. In the "Tartès house," his large residence surrounded by trees, he wrote the second part of his work, his monumental Avignon Quintet, devoted himself to painting and received his illustrious friends, including the couple Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, London publisher Alan G. Thomas, and his two daughters Penelope and Sappho.
Among the olive trees and under the Mediterranean sun, he met in the mid-1960s the young and vivacious "Jany" (Janine Brun), a woman from Montpellier in her thirties with devastating beauty, who worked in the Antiquities department of the Sorbonne in Paris. She was nicknamed "Buttons" in memory of their first meeting, where the young woman wore a dress covered with buttons. Henry Miller also fell under the charm of "Buttons," praising her beauty and eternal youth in exceptional unpublished letters. The three companions spent memorable Parisian evenings of which we retain precious autograph traces through their epistolary exchanges. Recommended by Durrell, she made numerous trips notably to England from where she received vast correspondence from the writer as well as original works of art signed with his artist pseudonym, Oscar Epfs.

Signed autograph postcard from Lawrence Durrell addressed to Jani Brun, written in black felt-tip pen, on the verso of a photograph topped with the humorous caption "Finies les vacances !! Les blés sont fauchés / Les vacanciers aussi !!" ["The holidays are over!! The wheat is cut / The vacationers too!!"]
The writer attempts to see his young French lover between two trips: "Dear and pretty chapeau jaune. je suis au mazet vendredi mais chez moi le soir. Vendredi je suis seul. phone-moi veux-tu ? si possible ? Car je m'en vais à Paris dimanche soir pour trois jours mais j'attends un coup de téléphone de là bas pour décider" ["Dear and pretty yellow hat. I'm at the mazet Friday but at home in the evening. Friday I'm alone. Will you phone me? if possible? Because I'm going to Paris Sunday evening for three days but I'm waiting for a phone call from there to decide"].



After many years spent in Greece, Egypt and Rhodes, the traveling writer Lawrence Durrell was forced to flee Cyprus following popular uprisings that led the island to independence from the British crown. Rich only with a shirt and a typewriter but crowned with the success of his novel Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, he arrived in France in 1956 and settled in the Languedoc village of Sommières. In the "maison Tartès," his large house surrounded by trees, he wrote the second part of his work, his monumental Avignon Quintet, devoted himself to painting and received his illustrious friends, including the couple Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, London publisher Alan G. Thomas, and his two daughters Penelope and Sappho.
Among the olive trees and under the Mediterranean sun, he met in the mid-1960s the young and vivacious "Jany" (Janine Brun), a woman from Montpellier in her thirties with devastating beauty, who worked in the Antiquities department at the Sorbonne in Paris. She was nicknamed "Buttons" in memory of their first meeting, where the young woman wore a dress covered with buttons. Henry Miller also fell under the spell of "Buttons," praising her beauty and eternal youth in exceptional unpublished letters. The three companions spent memorable Parisian evenings of which we preserve precious autograph traces through their epistolary exchanges. Recommended by Durrell, she made numerous trips particularly to England from where she received extensive correspondence from the writer as well as original works of art signed with his artistic pseudonym, Oscar Epfs.

First edition, rare, translated by Baron Jean de Reuilly.
Contemporary full red Russia leather binding. Smooth spine decorated with 5 fleurons and fillets. Gilt title. Wide decorative border on boards with eagles, serpents, rabbits and stars in the corners. Interior garland. Spine darkened, having become dark red. Dark stains on lower board. One scratch on upper board. Endpapers having suffered humidity with discoloration. In lower margin, faint trace of dampstaining throughout the volume, more extensive at end of volume, with traces in outer and lower margins. Handsome copy in contemporary Russia leather.
Manuscript ownership inscription Sorlin d'origny, Constantinoples, 1882. Below, a biographical note on Baron de Reuilly.
Sole separate edition of Pallas's journey to Tibet, which had not been printed in the French editions. It was translated from the first and third volumes of the German edition of Pallas's voyage published in St. Petersburg from 1771 to 1776. This edition was prefaced and annotated by Reuilly based on the missions of several travelers (Bogle, Stewart, Georgi and Andrade) and from his own observations.

First edition, one of 31 numbered copies on Holland van Gelder laid paper, deluxe copy.
Half camel morocco binding with bands, smooth spine decorated with two series of quintuple red and gilt fillets continuing onto the paste paper boards, orange paper endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt retaining deckled edges, binding signed by Devauchelle.
A very handsome copy.

First edition, one of 60 numbered copies on pur fil paper, the only deluxe copies.
Handsome copy.

First edition in French, one of 77 numbered copies on Lana vellum, the only deluxe copies.
Handsome copy.

Unpublished autograph letter signed

Dieppe | 1 September 1885 | 22.4 x 17.7 cm | one folded sheet under custom slipcase

Unpublished signed autograph letter from Edgar Degas to an unknown correspondent. 4 pages in black ink on one folded sheet. Central fold inherent to the way the letter was folded.his letter is presented in a chemise and case with paper boards decorated with abstract motifs, the spine of the chemise in green morocco, pastedowns and endpapers of green suede, slipcase signed by Thomas Boichot.
A handsome unpublished letter, testimony to Degas' other great passion after dance: song.he Parisian premiere of Ernest Rayer's Wagnerian opera Sigurd took place on 12 June 1885 at the Opera de Paris. Degas, overcome by the performance of the singer Rose Caron, saw the piece thirty-seven times: «I still love Sigurd and I like it more and more. I have never seen Reyer except once, in the street. And I made a point of telling him of the admiration it provoked in me far more immediately than in someone who, being neither maid nor washerwoman, was worthy of some consideration.» Degas paid homage to the beauty of Rose Caron in Sigurd by doing two drawings on fans, today in private hands in the US.Properly obsessed by this «admirable work that did [him] so much good, that [he] could not get over», the painter asked his famous neighbor to play him the score on the piano: «The young [Jacques-Emile] Blanche, our neighbor, plays it to me every day, in place of your wife.»he letter closes with a lyrical description of Mont-Saint-Michel, of which Degas had made several drawings: «Have you ever seen Mont-Saint-Michel? Could we go and spend a few days there together sometime? It's so pretty, so charming. In one month, I've been twice. The big tides at the end of September will take me back once more.»
Degas' passion for opera is the subject of an exhibition for the 350th birthday of the Paris Opera, open from 24 September 2019 to 19 January 2020 at the Musée d'Orsay.

VAN DONGEN Kees
Signed handwritten postcard addressed to his wife Augusta Preitinger.
Cairo April 1913, 8.8 x 13.9cm, one postcard.
Handwritten postcard signed by Kees van Dongen addressed to his wife Augusta Preitinger also known as Guus van Dongen, written on the reverse of the colour photograph postcard showing the Caliphate tombs in the desert around Cairo.
Van Dongen addressed this card to his wife during his first journey to Egypt; fascinated by the country, he returned in 1928.
Beautiful copy.

First edition, one of 80 numbered copies on vélin pur chiffon de Lana, the only grand papier (deluxe) copies.
A very nice copy.

Alberti Dureri clarissimi pictoris et geometræ. De sym[m]etria partium
in rectis formis hu[m]anorum corporum First edition of the Latin translation created by Joachim Camerarius, the work appeared in German in 1528 under the title Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion. Our edition contains the first two books, the following two will be published in 1534 under the title De varietate figurarum et flexuris partium ac gestibus imaginum. We will have to wait until 1557 for Louis Meigret's French translation to be published.
Our edition is illustrated with 85 large wooden insert illustrations and many other smaller in-text illustrations, the same as those used in the original German edition. The title page shows Dürer's well-known monogram. Gothic text. The last white leaf, missing in most copies, is present here. Large, greatly fresh margined copy.
Full parchment with preserved laces. Very beautiful copy of the most sought-after of Albrecht Dürer's technical works.
The illustrations required the examination of several hundred male and female models and – something rarer for the time – children. These extremely precise analyses resulted in anthropometrical impressionist drawings showing the human body as a whole, and also in detail (hands, feet, heads, etc.). Each drawing squared or scaled in the margin allows the models to be easily reproduced, the book being intended to avoid errors of proportion for young artists.
Joachim Camerarius' Latin translation – humanist and close friend of the author – had at the time an essential role: it gave Dürer's work, until then written in archaic German, a significant audience; without Camerarius, Michelangelo would never, for example, have known of Dürer's theory of proportions.
Dürer – whose godfather Anton Koberger published La Chronique de Nuremberg in 1493 – frequented the world of printing and engraving very early on and unlike his contemporary Florentine Leonardo da Vinci who published nothing, he produced several theoretical treatises. It was during a trip to Italy in 1494 that he met Jacopo de' Barbri (1445-1516) who introduced him to the role of mathematics in perspective and the study of the proportions of the human body. On returning to Germany, he opened a workshop, became the painter of Maximillian I of Habsbourg and joined the Great Council of the City of Nuremberg. Recognition is complete and Dürer becomes an internationally known artist, with the knowledge and ability for well-received thought.
In the last years of his life, not abandoning the pictorial arts, Dürer, encouraged by his humanist friends, spends most of his time writing. Determined to leave the results of his long theoretical thoughts for posterity, he publishes several treatises: Instruction sur la manière de mesurer (1525), Instruction relative aux fortifications des bourgs, villes et châteaux (1527) and finally Traité des proportions du corps humain (1528).
In keeping with the artistic considerations of the Renaissance, the intention of this last treaty is to establish a scientific basis (geometrical and arithmetical) applied to aesthetics and thus to provide practical guidelines aimed at achieving anatomical perfection.
A true artistic testament, this emblematic work will have a considerable influence on the history of Western art.

First edition, one of 20 numbered copies on Japan, head print.
Binding half morocco anthracite corners, smooth back adorned with cold boxes, golden date tail, guards and contreplats of marbled paper, guards and eggplant paper tidbits, covers and back preserved, gilded head witnesses, elegant binding signed Honnelitre .
Rare and beautiful copy of all perfectly established margins of this novel which was adapted to the cinema, in 1967, by Robert Bresson.

First edition for which it was not drawn from great papers.
Grisélidis Real, writer, painter and prostitute, is a great romantic figure of the late twentieth century. A lover, militant, fighter and poet, she upset the customs of Geneva society. She is now buried in the Cemetery of the Kings in Geneva between Jean Calvin and Jorge Luis Borgès.
Nice copy.
Rare autograph dedication signed Grisélidis Réal: "For Marie Chatelain, in memory of a friend I loved as a sister, Cécile Buhler, so artist, so alive and so beautiful, always present in our hearts Grisiledis Real."

Illustrated edition with 51 original colour compositions by Etienne Dinet, one of 60 copies on Japan paper, ours specially printed for the bookbinder René Aussourd, containing, at the end, a second state of the engravings in black.
Full brown morocco binding, smooth spine, gilt name of the illustrator at foot of spine, gilt dots on boards decorated with a wide blind-stamped border, border of chocolate brown morocco fillet on marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns, following endpapers of marbled paper, all edges gilt, covers and spine preserved, contemporary unsigned binding but attributable to René Aussourd.
Some foxing to verso of the last black engraving of the suite.
Complete copy with its advertising prospectuses and publisher's full green leather slipcase with flaps, brown felt lining.

Edition illustrated with 150 in-text wood-engraved vignettes and 24 beautiful full-page plates (including 2 maps) steel-engraved after Morel-Fatio, Tellier, Gigoux, Daubigny, Debon, H. Bellangé and Alfred Johannot. It also includes 8 additional hand-colored engravings, including 2 of coats of arms and 6 of costumes, which are not found in the first edition of 1843.
Publisher's binding in full black and polychrome cloth. Light rubbing traces. Small lack of gilding at foot. Very occasional pale foxing on clean white paper.
A very handsome copy.

Poems in Prose First edition, one of 50 numbered copies on Japon paper, the only grands papiers (deluxe) copies.
Burgundy morocco binding, spine in five compartments set with black fillets, gilt heraldic eagle at the bottom, heraldic coat of arms stamped in the centre of the boards, endpapers with geometric motifs, bordered with a burgundy morocco strip on the inner covers, gilt top edge, contemporary binding signed by Creuzevault.
Some small foxing on the endpapers and some very fine tears in the margin of the final endpapers.
Beautiful copy, nicely bound.

Edition illustrated with 30 etchings and original initials by Maurice de Becque, one of 10 numbered copies on Imperial Japan paper containing a duplicate suite signed by Maurice de Becque.
Two slight tears at head and foot of spine, otherwise handsome copy.

Imprimerie de Jules Didot l'aîné | Paris 1828 | 7.5 x 11.4 cm | publisher's binding
First edition, with title vignette, 6 plates and 12 vignettes for the Souvenirs calendar.
Gilded paper boards, slipcase. Covers
and spine decorated with silk painted in colors with dancing figures surrounded by friezes and floral motifs to spine, all edges gilt.
Silk slightly peeling on lower cover of case, head of joint of case with 1.2 cm crack, silk of case slightly soiled, a little foxing.

First edition, second issue with cancel title page, rare, published anonymously by the author. Title mark with sphere.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with 5 fleurons and dotted pattern. Brown morocco title-label. Upper headcap worn. Loss at tail. Upper joint cracked at head and tail. Lower joint narrowly cracked at head. Rubbing.
A theatrical work that constitutes a curiosity, with both mythological and utopian subject matter. The action takes place in Colchis, land of the ancient Amazons, under Turkish rule. The Amazons seek to free themselves from the grand lord who dominates them, but in this war, there is neither death nor battle, the only weapons available to the Amazons being love and intoxication. The play contains numerous notes on mythology and is accompanied by relatively fanciful dissertations on the discovery of the New World by Hercules, the origins of chivalry among the Amazons and the Greeks. Interesting and astonishing.

The rare and sought-after first edition.
Bradel binding in half sienna-colored cloth, smooth spine decorated with a gilt floral motif, double gilt fillets at foot, marbled paper boards, contemporary binding.
Ink gift inscription from a previous owner on the half-title page, some light foxing affecting mainly the endpapers.

First edition.
Bradel binding in sienna half-cloth, smooth spine decorated with a gilt fleuron, double gilt fillets at foot, marbled paper boards, one upper corner slightly bumped, contemporary binding.
Gift inscription in pen from a previous owner on the half-title page, some foxing affecting mainly the endpapers.
Complete with its folding map at the end of the volume.

First edition, one of 10 numbered copies on Holland paper, ours bearing N°1, deluxe copy.
Spine with some creasing and a small tear reglued at foot.
Handsome full-margined copy.

The rare and sought-after French first edition. Translation from German by Dumas. The large folding map, placed at the end of volume II, is missing and has been replaced by a photocopy of the reduced map provided by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France on its Gallica website. It was drawn by French cartographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) and published by Abbé Prévost. This has been refolded to insert in place of the original map.
Contemporary full marbled calf bindings. Decorated smooth spines. Red morocco title and volume labels. One wormhole at the head of volume I. Evidence of rubbing to headcaps and corners. Lacking the half-title of the second volume. Handsome copy.
The first volume surveys all the voyages of discovery carried out in eastern Russia, Kamchatka, Siberia, and notably and especially that of Vitus Bering who in 1728 was the first to discover the northwest passage, leaving his name to the famous Bering Strait. The latter made a voyage by the same route to southern Alaska in 1741. The work relates numerous voyages, notably that of Simon Dejnev around the Chukchi Peninsula, that of Mikhail Gvozdev and Ivan Fedorov across the Bering Strait to Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, in 1732... The second volume deals with the history of the Amur River based on Witsen's work on northern and eastern Tartary. This history details the reports and relations between the Russians and Chinese, as well as Jesuit interventions.

First edition.
Bradel bindings.
Occasional foxing, ex-donos.
Rare.
.

Handwritten signed postcard from Alexander Calder to Juan Luis BuñuelHandwritten signed postcard from Alexander Calder to Juan Luis Buñuel, written in English in ballpoint pen and blue felt-tip. Saché postmark (Indre-et-Loire). Paris address of Juan Luis Buñuel.
Card perforated with two holes at the top. Photograph of one of Calder's stabiles on the front.
Provenance: Buñuel family archives.
In 1939, Luis Buñuel, who had just received an offer to work in Hollywood, decided, with his wife and child, to leave the chaotic situation in Europe to go and live the American Dream. The penniless Buñuels initially spent a few precarious months living in New York. Luis Buñuel found himself forced to ask Dali—his longstanding friend in exile, along with Gala, during these years—to lend him some money.
His request was refused in no uncertain terms, putting an end to the two men's friendship. Thus it was Calder, whom Luis had perhaps already met in Paris in the 1920s, who put the whole family up in his Upper Side apartment. Juan Luis Buñuel, the artist's godson, sensed that his interest in sculpture began in this same period: “When Dali told my father he would not lend him any money, he contacted him [Calder]. He offered his house to us and we lived with his family for a time. I can only vaguely remember it, but it was then that I started to become interested in sculpture and he encouraged me” (Anton Casto, Juan Luis una entrevista).
Despite the geographical distance that would come to separate them, Alexander Calder would remain a friend of the Buñuel family. The relationship between the artist and the film-maker is, however, almost entirely absent from the biographies, and this correspondence is a rare testimony to the profound connection between the sculptor and the Buñuel family.

HOMER & Sebastian CASTELLIO
Homeri opera graeco-latina, quae quidem nunc extant, omnia Stated the third edition, revised and expanded, reprinted from the 1561 edition from the same publisher. Printer's device to title. Colophon on verso of final leaf: “Basileae, Ex Officina Haeredum Nicolai Brylingeri, Anno Salutis M. D. LXVII Mense Martio”. In Greek and Latin, double column, Latin on the left, Greek facing. Index in triple column at front of work. The preface is preceded by an epigram from the Basle humanist Heinrich Pantaleon (1522-1595).
Contemporary calf, spine in seven compartments, decorated with the initials PS and a spray of fleurs de lys, covers with fleurs de lys, initials to center and corners; laurel crown above central initials and large double frieze frame, a.e.g. Colored paper guards replaced in the second half of the 18th or first half of the 19th century, wormhole from leaf 277 growing steadily towards the end, occasionally touching a few letters, restorations to head and tail-pieces, joints, edges of covers and corners.

Rare and early “prize” copy set in a binding with the monogram of the Plessis-Sorbonne College. The custom of “prize books” “flourished in the early 17th century in the large Jesuit colleges, thanks to the purchase of books offered by the highest figures in the province or city. At this time, this ceremony was neither a general practice nor even an annual one in these establishments. It fluctuated according to the generosity of donors. It is only from the years 1730-1740 that it became widespread and tended to be regular and organised.” (in Catalogue d'exposition du fonds Chomarat à la BM de Lyon, 16 June to 26 September 1998).

This edition by Sébastien Castellion uses the Greek text of Henri Estienne, with a preface by the latter and a life of Homer by Plutarch. The works traditionally collected at this period were the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Batrachomyomachia, and the Hymns. Sébastien Castellion was a humanist, a Bible scholar and Protestant known for his defense of religious tolerance. He died in Basel in 1563.

First edition very rare of the first novel of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (see Clouzot).
Occasional rare spotting.
Half sheep, very light traces of repair on the spine, covers marbled, contemporary binding.
A very nice copy.

First edition illustrated with 2 original dry tips Alexis de Kervoal, one of 14 numbered copies on Royal Lana, only draw after 6 other Lana Royal.
Binding of the editor in full cardboard covered with kraft paper and perforated inside to reveal, on the left an original drawing and on the right to place the text in leaves.
Our copy, like the 14 copies on Lana Royal, is enriched with an original drawing signed by Alexis de Kermoal representative.
Handwritten signatures of Fernando Arrabal and Alexis de Kermoal in pencil at the beginning of the volume.

Illustrated with 16 original copper engravings by Kees Van Dongen, one of 900 numbered copies on Vergé du Marais paper.
Publisher's full marbled fawn sheep binding, smooth spine with some rubbing, top headcap worn down, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, corners slightly bumped, bookplate pasted on a pastedown, speckled edges.
Handsome interior condition.

First edition, one of the 100 numbered copies on luxury paper, the only deluxe copies ("grands papiers").
Spine and sides of the chemise slightly sunned, pleasant copy.

first edition, on current paper, of the French translation.
A precious autographed and signed copy of Victoria Ocampo: "To Paul Valéry, this little book - a testimony of my love for France - has nothing to say to her from the literary point of view, with admiration, friendship and so much desire To see him again Victoria Ocampo Mar del Plata February 1945. "
A small tear and slight marginal bites on the second board.

Rare and highly sought-after first edition (...) of which only a portion of the copies contains a preface (cf. Clouzot). The important account of the lawsuit concerning The Lily of the Valley that precedes the novel was not retained in subsequent editions and is often lacking in a number of the copies published by Werdet.

Copy complete with both the preface and the account of the lawsuit that opposed Balzac to the publisher François Buloz. Contemporary half green sheepskin bindings, smooth spines decorated with gilt romantic typographical motifs, gilt fillets at heads and tails, marbled paper boards, paste paper endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, contemporary romantic bindings. Some minor foxing, bookseller's descriptive label pasted at head of front pastedown of the first volume.

Exceptional copy in an elegant contemporary binding.

First edition of the French translation, one of 65 numbered copies on alfa paper, the only grand papier (deluxe) copies.
Half morocco, covers and spine (sunned) preserved, top edge gilt, binding signed by Boichot.

Original drawing in ink and watercolor depicting an animated seaside view with a village perched on a cliff.
Modern framing in blonde molding.
Drawing executed during the journey made with the Marquis de Sade during the year 1776.
Jean-Baptiste Tierce (1737-1794), student at the École des Beaux-arts in Rouen then at the Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, quickly distinguished himself as a landscape painter for his views of the South of France and Italy. His paintings are preserved at the Uffizi in Florence and in several French museums. When in December 1775 Sade left Rome for Naples, he was welcomed by the son-in-law of his friend Doctor Mesny, Jean-Baptiste Tierce, who at that time was receiving commissions from Cardinal de Bernis. He found lodging for the Marquis "[who] intended to see everything [in the region], learn about everything, judge, admire, criticize, love, hate, in short to give free rein to that insatiable and passionate curiosity which led him into museums, galleries, churches, palaces and libraries, as well as into grottos, vaults, catacombs, and even into the bowels of volcanoes. He was not content to contemplate works of art, ancient or modern monuments; he also observed customs, politics, religion, administration, social life. The beauty of women, worldly customs, the quality of entertainments, ways of eating, drinking, dressing, praying, conducting oneself in society: nothing left him indifferent. He wanted to grasp all the present and all the past of this civilization, to embrace it entirely in a single and universal vision. A gigantic program, commensurate with his exceptional imagination, but which he could no longer fulfill, which was impossible for him to fulfill.
Yet such was his first ambition as a writer: grandiose, excessive. With this 'great work' in view, Sade hastily took notes, at roadsides or in inns, which he supplemented with the notes of his correspondents Mesny and Iberti. Thus was built this monument which he intended for the public, but which would not see the light of day until the 20th^th century.
Jean-Baptiste Tierce collaborated closely: he reread the notes and recorded his observations in small notebooks, with numbers referring to the works described. Sade took the greatest account of them. Often, the painter accompanied him on his excursions, his sketchbook in hand, drawing the buildings and landscapes before their eyes. About a hundred of these drawings and gouaches were recently found in the archives of the Sade family. They give the Journey to Italy the appearance of a true reportage." (Maurice Levert, Sade, pp. 283-284).
Provenance: archives of the Sade family.

New edition produced by Denys Godefroy, the first dating from 1649. One folding genealogical table and 6 portraits re-engraved by Audran. Title pages in red and black. Volume III bears a specific title: Divers traittez, contracts, testamens, et autres actes et observations [...]. Volume IV: Supplement aux memoires.
Bindings in full speckled brown sheep. Spine with raised bands, decorated. Fawn morocco title labels. Gilt volume numbering. Lacks at head of volume I. One wormhole at foot of volume IV. 4 corners very bumped. Bindings rubbed and worn.
An essential work engendering modern history, Commynes' work, which moreover establishes a rule of political conduct for the Great ones of the kingdom, forms the greatest source for this period. From 1472 to 1483, after having been counselor to the Duke of Burgundy (Charles the Bold), Commynes entered the service of Louis XI, then of Charles VIII and Louis XII. He distinguished himself there through his diplomatic talents, notably in Italy; consequently, the Memoirs are also a history of Europe. Too often forgotten is that his exemplary career experienced an interlude of disgrace: opposing the young Charles VIII through his liberal ideas, he rallied to the cause of the future Louis XII (plot aimed at abducting Charles VIII). He was consequently arrested and locked in an iron cage at Loches for five months, in 1488.
To this day, the work still being studied, Commynes' Memoirs have never failed in success and interest. Denys Godefroy's critical edition replaced the one that had served as reference until then, Savage's version. This edition contains La chronique scandaleuse, the proofs and observations, Addition à l'histoire de Louis XI by Charles Naudé, Le cabinet du roi Louis XI by Tristan L'Hermite, L'éloge du roi Charles VIII by Brantôme, Comparaison du règne du roi Louis XII à celui du roi Louis XI by Claude de Seissel, Chronicles of the Dukes of Burgundy, Remarks on the history of King Louis XI by Varillas.

Fifth and best edition, expanded with the eulogy of M. de Pouilly (lieutenant general of the presidial court of the city of Reims which Levesque de Pouilly endeavored to embellish), by Abbé de Saulx, the text that would be engraved on a fountain erected in his honor, the 2 speeches he delivered in Reims on March 6, 1748 and February 17, 1750 and the description of a monument discovered in the city in 1738. This edition is illustrated with a frontispiece, two folding plates at the end of the work, three title vignettes, and a title headpiece, all designed by De Seve and engraved by J. Robert. This is the finest edition of this text.
Full red straight-grained morocco binding (Russia leather) slightly later. Smooth spine decorated in grotesque style with two different motifs. 2 scratches on lower board. Darker areas on upper board. Some pale scattered foxing. Very handsome copy.
"Esteemed work" according to Brunet, this work takes up the philosophers' theories on feelings. From a science of sentiment, the author strives to derive a morality concerning love and friendship. Interesting edition, as it provides information about the author.

First edition of the first book of André Breton, one of 115 numbered copies on Hollande, the only printing after 10 Japon.
Nicely bound in black and red Révorim by Jean de Gonet, endpapers and pastedowns of black paper, covers and spine preserved, binding made in only 200 copies.
Illustrated with two unpublished drawings by André Derain.
Occasional foxing, not serious, endpapers slightly faded al over.

Original color print, printed on vergé paper, signed in the plate.

An original print used to illustrate the Gazette du bon ton, one of the most attractive and influential 20th century fashion magazines, featuring the talents of French artists and other contributors from the burgeoning Art Deco movement.

A celebrated fashion magazine established in 1912 by Lucien Vogel, La Gazette du bon ton appeared until 1925, with a hiatus from 1915 to 1920 due to the war (the editor-in-chief having been called up for service). It consisted of 69 issues printed in only 2,000 copies each and notably illustrated with 573 color plates and 148 sketches of the models of the great designers. Right from the start, this sumptuous publication “was aimed at bibliophiles and fashionable society,” (Françoise Tétart-Vittu, “La Gazette du bon ton”, in Dictionnaire de la mode, 2016) and was printed on fine vergé paper using a type cut specially for the magazine by Georges Peignot, known as Cochin, later used (in 1946) by Christian Dior. The prints were made using stencils, heightened in colors, some highlighted in gold or palladium.

The story began in 1912, when Lucien Vogel, a man of the world involved in fashion (he had already been part of the fashion magazine Femina) decided, with his wife Cosette de Brunhoff – the sister of Jean, creator of Babar – to set up the Gazette du bon ton, subtitled at the time: “Art, fashion, frivolities.” Georges Charensol noted the reasoning of the editor-in-chief: “’In 1910,’ he observed, ‘there was no really artistic fashion magazine, nothing representative of the spirit of the time. My dream was therefore to make a luxury magazine with truly modern artists…I was assured of success, because when it comes to fashion, no country on earth can compete with France.’” (“Un grand éditeur d’art. Lucien Vogel” in Les Nouvelles littéraires, no. 133, May 1925). The magazine was immediately successful, not only in France but also in the United States and Latin America.

At first, Vogel put together a team of seven artists: André-Édouard Marty and Pierre Brissaud, followed by Georges Lepape and Dammicourt, as well as eventually his friends from school and the School of Fine Arts, like George Barbier, Bernard Boutet de Monvel and Charles Martin. Other talented people soon came flocking to join the team: Guy Arnoux, Léon Bakst, Benito, Boutet de Monvel, Umberto Brunelleschi, Chas Laborde, Jean-Gabriel Domergue, Raoul Dufy, Édouard Halouze, Alexandre Iacovleff, Jean Émile Laboureur, Charles Loupot, Chalres Martin, Maggie Salcedo. These artist, mostly unknown when Lucien Vogel sought them out, later became emblematic and sought-after artistic figures. It was also they who worked on the advertising drawings for the Gazette.

The plates put the spotlight on, and celebrate, dresses by seven designers of the age: Lanvin, Doeuillet, Paquin, Poiret, Worth, Vionnet and Doucet. The designers provided exclusive models for each issue. Nonetheless, some of the illustrations are not based on real models, but simply on the illustrator’s conception of the fashion of the day.

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…

Taken over in 1920 by Condé Montrose Nast, the Gazette du bon ton was an important influence on the new layout and aesthetics of that “little dying paper” that Nast had bought a few years earlier: Vogue.

First edition, one of 25 numbered copies on pur fil paper, the tirage de tête.
A very good copy.

MAYGRIER Jacques-Pierre & CHAZAL Antoine
Nouvelles démonstrations d'accouchemens
[New Demonstrations of Deliveries]
Bechet, à Paris 1822, 30 x 43 cm, contemporary brown calf
First edition, with the illustrations of the author (often missing) and 79 plates (plate 27-28 double page) hors texte steel-engraved by Forestier after drawings by Antoine Chazal.
Strictly contemporary Romantic binding in brown calf, spine in six compartments richly decorated with gilt fillets and blindtooled arabesques, boards with blindtooled arabesques to corners, double fillet frame and gilt initials ‘A.D.' to centre, gilt roulette framing marbled endpapers and pastedowns, double gilt fillets to edges of covers. Binding very skilfully restored.
Jacques-Pierre Maygrier (1771-1835) was a student of Antoine Dubois, the obstetrician of Empress Marie-Louise. He practiced at the Cochin hospital and at the Hôtel Dieu and lectured extensively on obstetrics with the intention of simplifying the teaching of the subject (e.g. on the anatomy of the fetus, the mechanics of birth, etc.).
A very attractive copy of this rare and magisterial atlas of obstetrics in a remarkable strictly contemporary binding.
$ 7 500

Rare edition with imprint stating it was finished on a sunny day in the countryside and printed in a small number of copies for the flower of our friends towards the end of the world.
Spine slightly warped without gravity.

First illustrated edition with 5 chromolithographs, one color map, all pages within a wide engraved border featuring marine scenes, landscapes, monuments... The effect of these borders is quite extraordinary when one further considers that they are renewed on each page.
Publisher's binding in half red shagreen bound by Engel and richly decorated with two special plates, a repeated ornament at head and foot, scattered stars throughout and thick and thin fillets. Special gilt plate created by Souze, an anchor in the foreground, caravels on the sea and the setting sun in which the American continent appears. The same plate is found on the back without the title. Traces of rubbing at the lower edges on the covers and at the corners, as well as at the outer edges. Nevertheless a very handsome copy, with fine freshness, both external and internal.
The biography of Christopher Columbus (1856) by Count Roselly de Lorgues was significant in its time, elevating the navigator to the rank of Christian and Catholic hero, Léon Bloy would draw from it to write his own version of Columbus: Le révélateur du globe.

Edition, one of 35 copies numbered on "pur-fil" paper only leading copies.
Bel autograph signed and dated Claude Roy to Régine (Deforges): "... fine and golden, so sun that wants to devour his friend ..."
Nice copy.

New edition.
Binding splendid in full morocco mosaic lemon eighteenth in the way Padeloup. Back smooth decorated with small irons small nets curves and angular mosaic suns red central lozenge and quatrefoil hit a flagship red mosaic tail points and nets. Gilt title. boards decorated with small irons component rich garland framing, mosaic of red in the spandrels and a decorated central motif of various jewels and petis irons. Lace on cups and interior. The copy was possibly réemboîté, suggesting that domestic boards. Sumptuous mosaic binding unsigned master undoubtedly very rare.