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<p>They are called deluxe papers, limited editions, <em>tirages de t&ecirc;tes</em> or simply first editions. They were printed in small numbers on special paper and carefully preserved, from the very beginning, by the first readers and admirers of these literary geniuses. These copies are the origin of the work and its legacy.</p>
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Gift Ideas – Rare Editions

They are called deluxe papers, limited editions, tirages de têtes or simply first editions. They were printed in small numbers on special paper and carefully preserved, from the very beginning, by the first readers and admirers of these literary geniuses. These copies are the origin of the work and its legacy.

466 results
  3. Les rois en exil
    Alphonse DAUDET
    Les rois en exil
    E. Dentu|Paris 1879|12 x 18 cm|relié
    first edition on the current paper it is printed in Holland paper a few leading copies.
    Binding to bradel half percaline green, smooth back with a gold floral motif, double net gilded tail, as a piece of modern burgundy shagreen, marbled paper plates, two corners lightly used, contemporary binding.
    Precious autograph signed by Alphonse Daudet: ". The novelist JB d'Aurevilly his admirer and friend Alphonse Daudet"
    Some minor foxing.
    €6,000
  6. Hésiode, Hymnes orphiques, Théocrite, Biôn, Moskhos, Tyrtée, Odes anacréontiques. Traduction nouvelle
    Charles-Marie LECONTE DE LISLE
    Hésiode, Hymnes orphiques, Théocrite, Biôn, Moskhos, Tyrtée, Odes anacréontiques. Traduction nouvelle
    Alphonse Lemerre|Paris 1869|16 x 24.50 cm|relié sous emboitage
    first edition of the French translation by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle.
    Bound in red half-morocco with corners, back with five nerves, gilded head, contreplats and paper guards to the tank, blankets and back preserved, a few rare foxinges, beige canvas casing, modern binding.
    Precious autograph dedication from Leconte de Lisle to George Sand:
    "To Mrs. G. Sand
    tribute of respectful admiration
    Leconte de Lisle »
    From his earliest writings, Leconte de Lisle placed himself directly under the influence of George Sand, to whom he dedicated two poems of youth: to George Sand and Lelia in solitude . This filiation was gradually transformed into reciprocal admiration, since George Sand paid tribute to the author in an article of the Temps du 31 July 1872: "M. Leconte de Lisle is a great poet too, and of such a strong originality that he is became a school head. We owe him real recognition? it would have to be a national recognition. "
    This autograph dedication of the author, in the form of homage, accounts for the reciprocal esteem and admiration that the two authors bore.

    Very nice literary tribute on a copy nicely connected.
    €5,000
  7. La lampe dans l'horloge
    André BRETON
    La lampe dans l'horloge
    The Lamp in the Clock
    Robert Marin|Paris 1948|11 x 17 cm|broché sous chemise et étui

    BRETON André. La Lampe dans l'horloge [The Lamp in the Clock]
    Robert Marin, Paris 1948, 11 x 17 cm, original wrappers with custom slipcase
    First edition, one of the numbered copies on alfa mousse paper, this one not justified.
    Wrappers in chemise and case.
    With an exceptional and important presentation inscription from André Breton to Jean-Paul Sartre.
    Case with almond-colored paper boards and chemise, red morocco title-piece and label with “exemplaire de J. P. Sartre [J.P. Sartre's copy]”.
    This inscription from the Pope of Surrealism to the master of Existentialism – of whose rare meetings, most notably in New York, there remain barely any traces in their biographies – is all the more surprising since Sartre had just published a vitriolic article on Breton in Qu'est-ce que la littérature? [What is literature?]:
    “The theoretical accord between Surrealism and the Communist Party against the bourgeoisie does not in fact go beyond the formal; it is the formal idea of negativity that unites them…Negativity subsists, no matter what anyone says, outside of history: it is, at the same time, of the instant and everlasting – it is the ultimate end of both literature and art. Somewhere, Breton approves of the… ‘sacred mission' of the proletariat. But in the end, this class – imagined as a legion of exterminating angels – is in reality nothing more for authors than a religious myth that plays a role (for the salving of their consciences) analogous to that played by the myth of ‘the People' in 1848 for well-intentioned writers.”
    André Breton did not reply to Sartre's criticisms, nor even the ones formulated a year later by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex.
    This little work, as much political as it is poetical, is nonetheless a part of the common cause of these two intellectuals within the extremely ephemeral Rassemblement Démocratique Révolutionnaire. Founded in 1947 by Sartre, it very quickly floundered despite the active engagement of Breton.
    1948 was therefore the only intellectual meeting of these two great “Masters of Thought” of the second half of the 20th century, whose personalities – intransigent and exclusionary – did not allow for a lasting philosophical union.
    €8,000
  8. La danse de Sophocle
    Jean COCTEAU
    La danse de Sophocle
    [The Dance of Sophocles] His Mother's Copy
    Mercure de France|Paris 1912|15 x 19 cm|relié

    First edition, one of 7 numbered copies on Hollande paper, the only large paper copies, this one no. 1, specially printed for Jean Cocteau's mother.
    Contemporary vellum Bradel binding by Dupré, gilt date to foot of spine, brown shagreen title label, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved. Light worming, principally affecting the margins of some leaves.
    A moving and exceptional autograph inscription signed and dated by Jean Cocteau to his mother, in Latin, quoting a verse of Virgils Bucolics: “Incipe, parve puer : cui non risere parentes, nec deus hunc mensa, dea nec dignita cubili est. / Virgile. / Jean”, which in English is: “Realise this, child: the boy at whom his parents never smiled is fit neither to approach the table of the Gods, nor the couch of a Goddess.”
    A unique copy.

    With the publication of this third collection of poetry Cocteau, a young prodigy then aged 23, was feted by artistic and literary circles. An intimate of Proust's, a friend of Jacques-Emile Blanche, a follower of Nijinski and Diaghilev and a disciple of Anna de Noailles, his ambition was to unite in his own person all the talents that surrounded him.
    The Danse de Sophocle [Dance of Sophocles], a reference to the nude dance that “the young and divine Sophocles” did in Athens after the naval victory at Salamis, reflects the ambition and the exaltation of the young Cocteau: novelist, painter, dancer, poet, he felt truly “fit to approach the table of the Gods.”
    “As with all the best artists, he was a link between God and Earth.” In his biography, Claude Arnaud dedicates a chapter (“The Living God”) to the psychology of the poet in this period: “He was a piece torn from God, one of the terrestrial organs through which this Being, constantly evolving, thought about and finally acted to improve his creation.”
    Thus, Cocteau broke free of his illustrious models and assumed his full artistic divinity, which unfolded in this ecstatic collection, witnessed by the eponymous poem:

    Thanks to you, dear pride, I wore the halo
    Given by the charming god of words…
    Thanks to you, I knew the frenetic struggles
    in which pen and paper, the dreary pot of ink
    Are the ties of verses you want to shout
    You want to scream, sing, sigh, laugh…
    And which we must – since they are in us and we feel them –
    Let flow like beautiful blood.

    The inscription to his mother, on the first of seven rare large paper copies, is a witness to Cocteau's only real great influence: Eugénie Cocteau. A mother idolized by her son, she was a profound influence on both the poet's life and his work, marked by the omnipresence of the Oedipal figure. Claude Arnaud describes at length this “filial outpouring coupled with an almost amorous attention...: ‘only my love for you is rooted in something real, the rest seems to be a bad dream'.”

    One can hardly miss in this quotation from Virgil the incestuous ambiguity that bound Cocteau to his mother.

    One of the most desirable provenances for this extremely rare copy.

    €8,000
  9. Un exemplaire rare comportant 24 illustrations du Nil, en reliure d’inspiration arabe.
    Le Nil
    Alfred Edmund BREHM, Johannes DUMICHEN
    Le Nil
    [The Nile]
    A. Lévy|Paris 1882|28 x 37 cm|reliure de l'éditeur

    First edition in French, printed on vergé paper.


    Publisher's Arabesque yellow paper binding by A. Lenègre, spine with gilt, black, and turquoise Arabic decorative motifs (head- and tail-pieces slightly rubbed), upper cover richly ornamented with Arabic decorative motifs in gilt, black and turquoise with a frame of gilt and black fillets, turquoise paper pastedowns and endpapers (corners slightly bumped), all edges gilt, a few small insignificant spots to lower cover.
    Text by Alfred Edmund Brehm & Johannes Dumichen.
    The work is illustrated with 24 watercolors after nature by Charles Werner.
    A few small spots, mostly affecting endpapers.
    Rare.

    €2,000
  11. La vie littéraire, quatrième série - Exemplaire de Marcel Schwob
    Anatole FRANCE
    La vie littéraire, quatrième série - Exemplaire de Marcel Schwob
    Calmann Lévy|Paris 1892|12 x 19 cm|relié
    First edition on ordinary paper.
    Bradel binding in full brown cloth, smooth spine very lightly browned decorated with a gilt floral motif, double gilt fillets and gilt date at foot, black shagreen title-label, original wrappers preserved with small marginal restorations, one upper corner slightly bumped, contemporary binding.
    The final endpaper is marginally creased.
    Precious autograph inscription signed by Anatole France to his friend Marcel Schwob.
    €600
  12. Ignace de Loyola et la Compagnie de Jésus - Exemplaire de Victor Hugo
    Eugène SPULLER
    Ignace de Loyola et la Compagnie de Jésus - Exemplaire de Victor Hugo
    Georges Decaux|Paris s. d. [1876]|12.50 x 20 cm|relié
    The first edition, of which there were no deluxe copies.
    Bradel binding in half sand-colored cloth, smooth spine decorated with gilt floral motif, double gilt fillet at foot, black sheep title-label with some scratches, small spots on spine, marbled paper boards, original wrappers preserved (tiny lack at foot of first cover, lacks at foot of second cover).
    Rare and precious signed autograph inscription to Victor Hugo "... with the affectionate respects of the author..."
    Eugène Spuller, close friend and collaborator of Léon Gambetta, owed his political rise to Victor Hugo when Hugo chose him "to be his substitute in the senatorial elections of the Seine". (Eugène Spuller (1835-1896): itinéraire d'un républicain par Nathalie Bayon). Deputy of the Seine, a year later, he had a brilliant political career alongside Léon Gambetta and was appointed minister three times during the Third Republic. Victor Hugo mentions him several times in Choses vues.
    One manuscript correction by the author on page 96.
    Some occasional light foxing.
    €1,000
  14. Les histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin
    Jules VERNE
    Les histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin
    Hetzel|Paris s. d. [1901]|12 x 19 cm|relié
    First edition, of which there were no large paper copies
    Half light brown calf over marbled paper boards, double gilt fillets to spine, covers mounted on guards and preserved, top edge speckled; an unsigned modern pastiche binding by Goy & Vilaine
    Very rare autograph inscription from Jules Verne to [Achille] Tournier, prefect of the Somme at the time
    With original illustrations by Georges Roux
    A very good copy handsomely bound.
    €7,500
  15. Vie de Mélanie bergère de la Salette écrite par elle-même en 1900 - Son enfance (1831-1846)
    Léon BLOY
    Vie de Mélanie bergère de la Salette écrite par elle-même en 1900 - Son enfance (1831-1846)
    Mercure de France|Paris 1912|12 x 19 cm|broché
    First edition
    Handsome autograph insciption from Léon Bloy to the painter Georges Rouault: "Rien pour son art - Il n'y a pas de caricature".
    Spine reinforced with some filled in lacks, a tear repaired to the half title page,the one with the inscription.
    This copy has a chemise an slipcase of full black morocco over marbled paper boards, lined with sheep.

    Rouault fait la connaissance de Léon Bloy en 1904 par l'intermédiaire d'une de ses oeuvres: « On m'apprend que le peintre Georges Rouault, élève de Gustave Moreau, s'est passionné pour moi. Ayant trouvé chez son maître "La Femme pauvre"..., ce livre l'a mordu au coeur, blessé incurablement » (Journal de L. Bloy, 16 mars 1904). Naît alors une indéfectible amitié entre les deux artistes. Cependant lorsqu'en 1905 Rouault expose au Salon d'Automne "Monsieur et Madame Poulot" inspiré du roman de Bloy, la réaction de celui-ci est violente: « ... Cet artiste qu'on croyait capable de peindre des séraphins, semble ne plus concevoir que d'atroces et vengeresses caricatures. L'infamie bourgeoise opère en lui une si violente répercussion d'horreur que son art paraît blessé à mort. Il a voulu faire mes Poulot personnages de "La Femme Pauvre". À aucun prix je ne veux de cette illustration. Il s'agissait de faire ce qu'il y a de plus tragique : deux bourgeois, mâle et femelle, complets : candides, pacifiques, miséricordieux et sages à mettre l'écume de la peur à la bouche des chevaux des constellations. Il a fait deux assassins de petite banlieue. » Nul mieux que Raïssa Maritain ne sut décrire l'amitié complexe qui unit le jeune peintre et le vieil écrivain, analysant à la fois "la raison profonde de leur dissentiment" en citant une lettre de Bloy à Rouault de 1907 : « Vous êtes attiré par le laid exclusivement. " comme leur "admiration" qu'elle explique par "la vive foi de l'un et de l'autre, (...) l'élévation et la rigueur de leur conscience d'artistes". "Combien de fois - écrit-elle - dans les années qui ont suivi, n'avons-nous pas vu Rouault chez Bloy, debout, appuyé contre le mur, un léger sourire sur ses lèvres closes, le regard au loin, le visage apparemment impassible, mais d'une pâleur qui allait s'accentuant lorsque la question de la peinture moderne était abordée. Rouault pâlissait, mais gardait jusqu'au bout un silence héroïque. Et toujours, malgré cette irréductible opposition sur la question même de son art, il est resté fidèle à Léon Bloy. On eût dit qu'il venait chercher chez Bloy les accusations mêmes qui tourmentaient en lui ce qu'il avait de plus cher, - non pour les soumettre à une discussion quelconque, mais pour éprouver contre elles la force de l'instinct qui l'entraînait vers l'inconnu et qui devait triompher de tout obstacle." ("A l'aube de nouvelles amitiés" in La Nouvelle Relève, octobre 1941)C'est le même Léon Bloy, respectueux mais immuablement critique à l'égard de son jeune ami, qui lui dédicace ce portrait d'une sainte, cette élégie de la beauté qu'il ne saura jamais percevoir dans l'oeuvre de Rouault.
    €5,000
  16. Nu masculin, de dos
    Louis ANQUETIN
    Nu masculin, de dos
    A male nude from the back
    Fin XIXème - Début XXème|21 x 27 cm|Crayon sur papier
    A male nude from the back
    Pencil on paper | Late 19th – Early 20th century| 21 x 27 cm (31 x 47 cm with mount) | one drawing
    Original pencil drawing, mounted on guards.
    Artist's signature stamp and monogram stamp in the lower right corner of the work; artist studio's stamp on the back. Handwritten note on the back, in pencil, of the paper, the title and the date: 1895.
    Light signs of foxing on the left border without affecting the drawing, otherwise in very good condition.
    Provenance: artist's workshop, referenced in the Atelier Louis Anquetin catalogue (Thierry de Maigret, 28/11/08).
    €400
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