A precious book, a beautiful gift for Christmas

First complete collected edition and first illustrated edition. The first edition of Dom Garcie de Navarre, L'Impromptu de Versailles, Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre, Les Amans magnifiques, and La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas. With thirty copper engraved illustrations by Jean Sauvé after Pierre Brassart, 9 of them included in the pagination.
19th-century red full morocco binding, spines with five raised bands, date gilt at foot, double gilt fillets to edges of covers and spine-ends, large inned gilt dentelle, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Bindings signed M. Lortic.

An exceptional copy of the famous 1682 edition housed in a very elegant binding by Marcelin Lortic, who succeeded his father Pierre-Marcellin Lortic - Baudelaire's binder.

Fourth collective edition for the first part and third for the second and third parts, published by Corneille himself. Our copy is adorned with the frontispiece of the first two editions (dated 1645), and the portrait of Corneille by Michel Lasne, dated 1644.

Later bindings in full blue morocco, Jansenist spines with five raised bands, endpapers and pastedowns framed with gilt dentelles of marbled paper, all edges gilt, marbled paper slipcases bordered with morocco, bindings signed by Alix.

Rare and beautiful copy elegantly bound.

First edition displaying all the distinctive features of its publication: it presents no capital letters except at the beginning of paragraphs and it is the very first work to have been printed with Voltaire's spelling. Our copy is complete with its errata leaf, which is often missing.
Later bindings (19th century) in full red morocco, Jansenist spines with five raised bands, dates and places gilt at foot, boards struck at center with large gilt typographical fleurons, double gilt fillets on leading edges and headcaps, pastedowns lined with blue morocco presenting a wide gilt decorative border, monogrammed bookplates mounted on the pastedowns of each volume, following endpapers of combed paper, all edges gilt, bindings signed Chambolle-Duru.
Superb copy perfectly established in a binding signed by a master of French bookbinding.

First edition on ordinary paper.

Publisher’s full cloth binding, flat spine, minor inconsequential wear to headcaps and corners.

Illustrations.

Rare and valuable presentation copy to Odette and Francis Ponge.

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.

Seventh edition, expanded with new annotations and an appendix containing descriptive and historical details on all the monuments recently erected in the capital by J.-L. Belin, avocat.

Bound in contemporary half midnight-blue Russian morocco, flat spines gilt with romantic arabesques, gilt fillet framing the marbled-paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns; one lower corner lightly rubbed, contemporary bindings.

Scattered foxing.

Illustrated with 58 plates (including 11 archaeological plates), together with 5 folding colour plans hors texte.

A handsomely preserved copy in a period romantic binding.

Letter written by a secretary and signed by Louis XVI, addressed to Cardinal Ludovico Calini, in ink over eleven lines. The signature of Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, appearing at the foot of the bifolium, accompanies that of the King for these New Year wishes. The recipient's name is inscribed on the verso: "Mon Cousin le Cardinal Calino".

A few waterstains, a small hole at "qu'il vous ait".

"My Cousin, I have seen with pleasure from your letter of October 1st the token of the sincerity of the wishes you express for me at the beginning of this year. Your good intentions are as well known to me as you must be certain of my desire to give you proof of my esteem and affection. Whereupon I pray God that He may have you, My Cousin, in His holy and worthy keeping. Written at Versailles the 31st of January 1776." (our own translation). 

A fine set of the first four volumes of the French intégrale edition, identical to the original American structure. Volume 1 is housed in a metal case with embossed lettering and a folding map of Westeros. It is a copy of the highly sought-after very first French collector's edition of the series published in 2012. Volumes 2 and 3 followed in 2013, and volume 4 in 2014. 

Each volume signed by George R.R. Martin on the title page. The signatures were obtained during the author's only public signing session for French readers, held in Dijon on July 3, 2014. (Volume 5 was not published until 2015.)

Colour pictorial wrappers with flaps. Slight rubbing to corners, minor handling wear to spines of vols. 2 and 3, crease marks to upper board of vol. 3, lower board of vol. 4, and front flap of vol. 3; edges of volumes 2, 3 and 4 lightly toned. Light rubbing to spine and boards of metal case.

The first edition for large parts of the text, printed in 550 copies with the correct date of 1891 on the title.

Contemporary paper boards with blindstamped floral motifs, spine very slightly browned, brown shagreen title-piece, gilt date to foot of spine, covers preserved.
Biographical press clippings bound in at end, bookseller's description laid down on head of one endpaper, leaving a mark on the opposite page.
This copy is complete with the original preface by Rodolphe Darzens, removed from most copies of this printing.
A good copy in a contemporary binding, which is rare, according to Clouzot.

First edition and first printing of Lucien Laforge’s pacifist illustrations, one of 400 deluxe copies on special matte red paper from the Barthélémy paper mills, the only deluxe issue announced.
Some light wear, otherwise a very good copy of this fierce anti-militarist pamphlet in which runs "comme le grésillement du fer rouge marquant à vif la chair pâle et grasse du Bourgeois repu de morts" (Paul Vaillant-Couturier in L'Humanité).

Autograph letter signed by Charles Baudelaire, addressed to Antoine Arondel, written in black ink on a single sheet of blue paper.
Folds typical of mailing; minor losses expertly restored without affecting the text; a small tear on the signature discreetly repaired. This letter is transcribed in Correspondance I of Baudelaire (Pléiade, p. 277) and dated by Claude Pichois to May 1854.
In it, Baudelaire sends theatre tickets to his art dealer Antoine Arondel — a notorious and unscrupulous character who exploited the poet’s boundless taste for fine arts and encouraged his collecting obsession.

First edition, one of the review copies stamped "M.F." on the front cover and numbered in the colophon.

Small restored tears to the spine and upper part of the front cover, slight traces of creasing to the margins of the front cover.

Precious inscribed copy signed by Louis Pergaud to J.H. Rosny jeune, one of the historic members of the Goncourt Prize jury. Pergaud had won the 1910 Goncourt for his collection of short stories De Goupil à Margot.

Autograph postcard signed by Albert Einstein to Ludwig Hopf. 18 lines written verso and recto, address also in Einstein's handwriting. Postmarked June 21, 1910. 

Published in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 5: The Swiss Years: Correspondence, 1902-1914, Princeton University Press, 1993, n°218, p. 242.

An exceptional and highly aesthetic card from Albert Einstein to "the friend of the greatest geniuses of his time" - according to Schrödinger - mathematician and physicist Ludwig Hopf, who introduced Einstein to another 20^th-century genius: Carl Jung.
The master invites his pupil Hopf to a dinner party, whose guests include scientist Max Abraham, future great rival during Einstein's Zurich years and a fervent opponent of his theory of relativity.

The recipient Ludwig Hopf joined Einstein in 1910 as an assistant and student at his physics and kinetic theory seminars at the University of Zürich. They signed two fundamental papers on the statistical aspects of radiation and gave their names to the "Einstein-Hopf" velocity-dependent drag force. Their letter exchanges retrace the complex path of Einstein's work on relativity and gravitation, bearing witness to their great complicity and Hopf's invaluable contribution to the Master's research. A few months after writing the postcard, Hopf even found an error in Einstein's calculations of the derivatives of certain velocity components which Einstein corrected in a paper the following year. They also formed a musical duo – Hopf accompanied on the piano the Master's violin, performing pieces by great musical geniuses like Bach and Mozart.
With this card, Einstein invited his pupil and friend Hopf to dinner with Max Abraham, at the dawn of a major scientific controversy that would pit them against each other from 1911 onwards. Abraham's theory of special relativity failed to convince Einstein, who criticized its lack of observational verification and its failure to predict the gravitational curvature of light. In 1912, their dispute became public through scientific articles. Abraham never acknowledged the validity of Einstein's theory.

During their brilliant artistic and intellectual exchanges, Hopf undoubtedly succeeded where Freud had failed, as he declared to him in a letter: "I shall break with you if you boast of having converted Einstein to psychoanalysis. A long conversation I had with him a few years ago showed me that analysis was as hermetic to him as the theory of relativity can be to me" (Vienna, September 27, 1931). As a fervent supporter of psychoanalysis, Hopf is known to have introduced the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung to Einstein. Hopf and his teacher both left for Prague's Karl-Ferdinand University in 1911, where they met writer Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod in Madame Fanta's salon.
With the rise of the Nazi regime, the fates of the two theoreticians were plagued by persecution and exile. Einstein first took refuge in Belgium, Hopf in Great Britain after his dismissal in 1934 from the University of Aachen because of his Jewish origins. They continued their prolific correspondence in the midst of the turmoil, Einstein suggesting to Hopf the opening of a university abroad for exiled German students. Hopf died shortly after his appointment as chair of Mathematics studies at Trinity College Dublin in July 1939.

A precious invitation from the great physicist to one of the final dinner gatherings of the "old school" of science embodied by Max Abraham, on the eve of the publication of the theory of general relativity which would overturn classical conceptions of space and time and propel Science into the 20th century.

First edition, one of 15 numbered copies on Hollande Van Gelder paper and signed with the publisher's initials.
Full green morocco, the spine in five compartments, the first cover inlayed with a large and superb plate by Marguerite Lecreux of a horn sculpted in Cameo, featuring a sailboat with its sails unfurled, on the calm sea appears an engraved silverfish set under the plate of the horn and visible in transparency, pastedown in silk decorated with a submarine pattern (coral, jellyfish, starfishes and algae) framed in morocco embellished with quintuple gilt fillets, endpages of iridescence cloth, the following pages in marbled paper, the headband highlighted with a double gilt fillets, gilt roulette on the spine head, all edges gilt, typical Art Deco binding (circa 1910-1920) by Noulhac together with Marguerite Lecreux.

Rare and genuine posthumous first edition of the first six books of the Confessions, the remaining volumes not appearing until 1789. Several other editions were issued shortly thereafter, but the evidence provided by the commentary published in the June 1782 issue of the Journal Helvétique clearly establishes that this separately printed edition, known as the "large type" issue, is indeed the very first (F. Michaux, "L'Édition originale de la première partie des 'Confessions' de J.-J. Rousseau" in Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France, 35th Year, No. 2 (1928), pp. 250-253).
Contemporary half calf bindings, flat spines tooled with gilt fillets and decorated with beige morocco title and volume labels, marbled paper boards, all edges blue.
A handsome copy of this seminal text of the autobiographical genre, preserved in a contemporary binding.

Almost entirely unpublished handwritten letter from the painter Eugène Delacroix to the love of his youth, the mysterious “Julie”, now identified as being Madame de Pron, by her maiden name Louise du Bois des Cours de La Maisonfort, wife of Louis-Jules Baron Rossignol de Pron and daughter of the Marquis de La Maisonfort, Minister of France in Tuscany, patron of Lamartine and friend of Chateaubriand.

90 lines, 6 pages on two folded leaves. A few deletions and two bibliographical annotations in pencil on the upper part of the first page (“n^o114”).

This letter is one of the last to his lover in private ownership, all of Delacroix's correspondence to Madame de Pron being kept at the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles).
Only nine of the ninety lines of this unpublished letter were transcribed in the Burlington Magazine in September 2009, alongside the long article by Michèle Hanoosh, Bertrand and Lorraine Servois, whose research finally revealed the identity of the famous recipient.

Sublime love letter from twenty-four-year-old Eugène Delacroix, addressed to his lover Madame de Pron, twelve years his senior, who unleashed the liveliest passion in him. This episode of the painter's youth, then considered the rising star of Romanticism, for a long time remained a mystery in the biography of Delacroix, who was careful to preserve the anonymity of his lover thanks to various pseudonyms: “Cara”, “the Lady of the Italians”, and even “Julie”, as in this letter, in reference to the famous epistolary novel Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse by Rousseau. For obvious reasons, Delacroix did not sign his name on any of the letters in correspondence with the lady.

A great figure of the legitimate aristocracy, the recipient of this feverish letter is Madame de Pron, daughter of the Marquis de La Maisonfort, Minister of France in Tuscany, patron of Lamartine, friend of Chateaubriand. Her beauty was immortalized in 1818 by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who painted her portrait in pastel, with an oriental hairstyle.
Delacroix and Madame de Pron met in April 1822 when the portrait of the latter's son, Adrien, was commissioned, a pupil at the Lycée Impérial (now Lycée Louis-le-Grand). Delacroix had been commissioned for the portrait by his close friend Charles Soulier, Madame de Pron's lover, who despite himself, served as an intermediary for Delacroix. In the absence of Soulier, who had gone to Italy, the painter and the young women established an intense romantic relationship. The portrait commission became a pretext for their tender meetings in his studio on rue de Grès, while no trace of the child's painting has been found to this day.
Their adventure lasted a little over a year, but it was one of the most intense passions of the artist's life.
Our letter undoubtedly corresponds to the last throes of their relationship, in the month of November 1823. After one of their visits at the end of a hiatus of several months, Delacroix writes to her again under the influence of emotion: “I come home with a shaken heart, what a wonderful evening! [...] Sometimes I say to myself: why did I see her again? In the calm sanctuary where I lived, even in the middle of the invisible places that I had formed [...] I managed to silence my heart”. Madame de Pron had indeed decided to bring an end to their intimate relationship (see her letter from 10 November 1823: “I want sweet friendship [...] I do not want to torment you”, (Getty Research Institute). Losing all discernment and with blind devotion, Delacroix attempts to revive their affair: “Make me lie, prove to me that your soul is indeed that of the Julie that I once knew, since mine has regained its charming emotions and its worries”.
But the painter runs into Soulier and General de Coëtlosquet, also lovers of Madame de Pron. Delacroix had narrowly avoided a final disagreement with Soulier, who had almost seen a letter from Madame de Pron in his apartments: “I pretend to have lost my key [...] I hope that my wrong towards him will not affect his relations with... God grant that he always ignores it!” (Journal, 27 October 1822, ed. Michèle Hanoosh, vol. 1, p. 94).

A prisoner of this love square, Delacroix resigns himself to sharing his lover's affection, but he bitterly reproaches her for it: “I fear that you cannot love perfectly. There has been a gap in your feelings which has been fatal to you [...] tell me no, tell me anyway, fool me if you want, I'll believe you, I want to believe you so much and I need it”.
Formalities and familiar invectives merge in the tormented mind of the painter. Ironically, Delacroix frequently stayed with Madame de Pron's other lover, her cousin Empire Général Charles Yves César Cyr du Coëtlosquet, with whom she stayed in rue Saint-Dominique. Delacroix will take his revenge on this rival in 1826 by painting for him the famous Nature morte aux homards (Louvre museum), taking care to slip in facetious references to the ultra-royalism of his sponsor: "I have completed the General's painting of animals [...] He has already seduced a provision of amateurs and I believe that will be funny at the Salon (1827-1828)” he writes in a letter to Charles Soulier.

A memory of Delacroix's affair with Madame de Pron remains in his ongoing painting, the Scènes du Massacre de Scio, a revelation of the 1824 Salon, which will place Delacroix as the leader of Romanticism and will revolutionise the history of painting. Indeed, through his lover, he obtained Mamluk weapons, of which there remains a study (J72) and which appear on the sides of the Spahi charging the women in the final composition. Also, a watercolor album at the hand of his friend Soulier shows him in the process of decorating the room of his former lover with Pompeian decorations in the château de Beffes, where he will briefly stay in June 1826.

The ardor of his passion for Madame de Pron is finally revealed by this letter which does not appear in any bibliographical essay or correspondence of the painter. Later, Delacroix will remember his lover fondly: “You will tell Madame de Pron that French women have no equal for grace” (letter to Soulier, 6 June 1825).

First edition of the French translation, one of 325 numbered copies on alfa paper, the only deluxe issue together with a few alfa mousse copies not for sale.
Minor tears without loss at the head of the spine, which also shows slight sunning at the foot, final endpaper partially shaded.
A rare and pleasing copy.

First edition, on ordinary paper, of the French translation.
A small tear restored at the foot of the spine, a pleasing copy.
Letter-preface by Jean Cocteau, preface by Somerset Maugham.
Illustrated cover with a portrait of the Aga Khan by Kees Van Dongen, with iconography.

Rare and precious signed autograph presentation from the Aga Khan to Madame Avrillier.

 

Personal diary handwritten by Maurice Béjart, written in a 1969 diary celebrating the centenary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.
52 handwritten leaves, written in red and blue pen in a spiral-bound notebook. This diary features amongst Béjart's very rare, privately owned manuscripts, the choreographer's archives being shared between his house in Brussels, the Béjart foundation in Lausanne and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie.
The choreographer Maurice Béjart's diary written during the year 1969. An extremely rare collection of thoughts, questions and introspections from the point of view of Hinduism and Buddhist wisdom, which Béjart adopts following his first trip to India in 1967.
The diary is an emblematic testimony of the indo-hippie era of the 1960s, spiritual and artistic renaissance that inspired numerous ballets of the choreographer (Messe pour le temps présent, Bhakti, Les Vainqueurs).
A selection from this diary was published by Maurice Béjart in the second volume of his memoirs (La Vie de Qui ? Flammarion, 1996).
During the year 1969, Béjart wrote daily notes in a diary published in memory of Mahatma Gandhi. Fascinated by Hindu mysticism since his trip to India in 1967, he filled in this spiritual journal with numerous mantras and prayers (“Krishna guide my chariot, the light is at the end of the path. OM”; “Buddha is everywhere”; “Let God enter, but how to open the door”) and he calls upon the Hindu deities as well as the Bodhisattvas Mañju?r? et T?r? – soothing figures of the Buddhist pantheon. Béjart's “Indian period” was particularly rich in choreographic masterpieces, the progress of which can be followed in his diary (Baudelaire at the beginning of the year, the first performance of the Vainqueurs in Brussels and the Quatre fils Aymon in Avignon, as well as the filming and screening of his Indian ballet Bhakti). At the crossroads of New Age and the hippie movement, Béjart's “conversion” is symptomatic of an era that refuses progress and has a thirst for spirituality: “Calcutta is not India, but our western face. It is not religion or traditional thinking that is to blame, but capitalism. India, a rich country before colonisation.” The Beatle's visit to the guru Maharishi's ?shram and Ravi Shankar's concert at Woodstock in 1969 marks the beginning of a real western passion for Indian music and culture, which was decisive in Béjart's ballets at the time.
In Béjart's eyes, India presents itself as a place where art and ancestral traditions have not suffered the perversions of positivity. In his creations he seeks to express the spirit of a culture that intimately links the body and the spirit, and in which dance plays a major cosmic and spiritual role. Included in his ballets were Indian dance systems and Vedic songs that were discovered thanks to Alain Daniélou – in 1968 he opened the Messe pour temps présent with a long vînâ solo that lasted fifteen minutes: “Béjart is in his Hindu quarter-hour. And over there, Hindu quarter hours, can last for hours...” commented Jean Vilar, director of the Avignon festival. A wave of Indian fashion also passes through the costumes of the Ballet du XX^e siècle company: large silk trousers, tunics, jewellery and oriental eyes. In the diary, Béjart states that there is “no truth without yoga,” an art discovered from an Indian master that can be found in many of his ballets in the form of dance exercises on the barre. He also decides to make Bhakti “an act of Faith” by filming himself the ballet choreographer, and during the summer he prepares the Vainqueurs, an unusual meeting between Wagner and traditional Indian ragas.
Beyond the prolific artist, we also discover the choreographer's troubled personality in the diary, in the grips of doubt and melancholy: “vague state of physical weightlessness and moral emptiness. Lethargy or laziness. Weakness. Dizziness. Drowsiness. Unconsciousness.” Despite successes, Béjart will try to calm his fragile state by meditation and the teachings of Indian prophets and brahmins, which can be found throughout the pages of this diary (Ramana Maharshi, Swami Ramdas, the Dalai-Lama, Apollonius of Tyana).
His sometimes thwarted romances with his favourite dancer Jorge Donn monopolise him and plunge him into anxiety – on the eve of the Vainqueurs premiere, he writes, “Before dress rehearsal. Chaos. [Jorge] Donn disappeared. Tara absent. Me lost.” Torn between enjoyment and self-control, he tours at a frantic pace with his company Ballet du XXe siècle, first to the Netherlands, then to Milan, Turin and Venice in Italy: “I leave Venice completely enslaved to laziness, to sex and to ease, and yet a strange well-being of the brute who drank and fucked.” However, these happy moments did not go so far as to satisfy Béjart, for whom “Joy has a dead aftertaste” despite the “life of work and discipline” that he establishes during this richly creative year. At the end of his life, Béjart will look back with humour on his Indian escapades and the resolutely sombre tone of his diary: “I can't stop myself laughing at this idiot who cries and who moans, even though he created a great number of ballets [...] When I think that at the end of this diary in 1969 I was firmly considering retirement!”
An extremely rare document retracing the meeting of the East and the West in Maurice Béjart's personal life and choreographic work. This diary embodies an era of counter-culture and cultural syncretism that had long-lasting effects on avant-garde European ballet.

Autograph manuscript signed by the painter and writer Jacques-Émile Blanche, entitled « Serge de Diaghileff ». Five leaves written in black ink, with numerous corrections in blue. Autograph foliation in black ink, later foliation in blue pencil. Leaf 4, originally in two parts, was joined with a strip of adhesive affixed to the verso.

Crossed-out passages and corrections.

A very fine funeral oration by Jacques-Émile Blanche for his friend Serge Diaghilev, director of the celebrated Ballets Russes.
The painter and writer Jacques-Émile Blanche pays tribute to the genius of Serge Diaghilev, shortly after his death in Venice in 1929. Chosen as a « godfather » to the Ballets Russes, the painter followed closely the choreographer’s work as a regenerator of the performing arts and applauded Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps. He also produced numerous portraits of the Ballets Russes dancers, which he presented at the Venice Biennale in 1912.
At the beginning of the century, Diaghilev’s company, the « Ballets Russes », had dazzled audiences across Europe with a rich and vigorous art which, moving from one new form to another, remained at the avant-garde for twenty years. The painter recalls his first encounter with Diaghilev, a figure of undeniable charm: « j'éprouvai qu'on ne pouvait lui résister. Son autorité, ses caprices d'enfant gâté, on les subissait, tant son intelligence éclatait dans ses paroles d'adolescent. Il ressemblait, alors, assuraient ses compatriotes, au Tzar Alexandre Ier ». He evokes the impresario’s troubled existence and his dazzling triumphs with the Ballets Russes: « Eh quoi ! vingt ans d'expériences, vingt ans d'incomparables spectacles - et la perfection d'une technique de plus en plus déconcertante, ne nous conseilla-t-il pas d'accorder crédit illimité à notre cher ami, le plus artiste des hommes - et somme toute, le plus sûr de soi-même, malgré l'extravagance, le paradoxe de la vie qu'il menait et qu'il imposait à sa troupe ? ».
Blanche highlights Diaghilev’s taste for French culture, which he shared with his friends and collaborators. This passion, inherited from Russian aristocratic circles, made him « Le plus parisien des cosmopolites, croyant au prestige de Paris comme un boulevardier du second Empire ». We also learn of Diaghilev’s unrealized plan to travel to Moscow and stage ballets in the young USSR, then regarded as a land of political and artistic avant-garde. The letter closes with a moving evocation of Venice, where Diaghilev passed away on 19 August 1929:
« voici qu'un funèbre cortège de gondoles accompagne sur la lagune torride [...] les restes de notre cher camarade. Il est bien - puisqu'il devait nous quitter - qu'il fermât les yeux sur la cité du Sang, de la volupté et de la Mort ».

A remarkable panegyric to the creator and impresario Serge de Diaghilev by Jacques-Émile Blanche, his loyal friend and portraitist of the Ballets Russes.

Entrance card (22.2 x 27.4cm), two tone recto print wood engraving on strong beige paper, central fold. One corner restored but a good copy.
Entrance ticket (n°1334 price 25) for the Grand Bal des Artistes organized at Bullier Hall, 31 rue de l'Observatoire in Paris on 23 February 1923 “for the benefit of the mutual aid fund of the Union of Russian Artists”.

Illustrated with a large, two tone wood engraving by Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964). On the back, the signature-stamp of S. Gourevitch, treasurer of the Union of Russian Artists.

Mikhail Larionov was a naturalized French, Russian painter and decorator, close to Kasimir Malevitch and Vladimir Tatline, husband of Nathalie Gontcharova. At the beginning of the 20th century, he was one of the pioneers of the Russian Avant-garde. In 1914, he moved to Paris and notably produced the sets for Serge Diaghilev's Russian Ballets.

New edition.
Contemporary binding in half green shagreen, spine in four compartments set with gilt stippling, gilt fillets and gilt fleurons in the corner pieces, multiple blind tooled frames on the boards, white iridescent paper endpapers, all edges gilt.
Some leaves shorter in the bottom margin.

Handwritten inscription signed by George Sand on the first endpaper: “à mon bon ami Edmond Plauchut. G. Sand".

Today the only outsider to the family buried in the cemetery of the Nohant house, is Lucien-Joseph-Edmond Plau
chut (1824-1909) who began an epistolary relationship with George Sand in the autumn of 1848 when he was a voluntary expatriate after the fall of the Republic. Leaving for Singapore, he was shipwrecked off the coast of the Cape Verde Islands and was able to save only one cassette containing Sand's letters that he had preciously bound. These missives were his salvation: they allowed him to be collected, fed and laundered by a rich Portuguese admirer of the Lady of Nohant, Francisco Cardozzo de Mello.

After several journeys toward the Far East, and several exotic presents sent to his distant and yet so close friend, Plauchut finally met George Sand in
1861. In 1870, she paid a vibrant tribute to him in the preface of her novel Malgrétout.

Despite everything, she recounts the shipwreck of which he was a victim and expresses with emotion her friendship for this courageous friend. Plauchut, much loved by the Sand family – and particularly George's granddaughters who nicknamed him Uncle Plauchemar – was an integral part until his death in January 1909.

The handwritten signed inscriptions on La Mare au Diable are very rare, this one is from a superb provenance.

First edition with 46 illustrations by Harry Furniss.
Publisher's binding over flexible paper boards, discreet and light repairs on the
joints, all edges gilt.
Autograph inscription dated and signed by Lewis Carroll to Mrs Cole.

Edition published the same year as the first. Illustrated with a portrait of the author, three folding plates, a folding map of Longwood house and two folding maps.
Some foxing.

Full black calf bindings, smooth spines with gilt romantic motifs, boards with central motif in blind, boards ruled in gilt, a small restoration to the margin of the first volume's upper board, handmade endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, spine-ends ruled in gilt, contemporary romantic bindings.

Rare signed and inscribed copy to a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, on the title page of the first volume: "A Mr. Foucauld, ancien s. [sous] officier de la Grande Armée. Passy 19. 7bre 1840 par le Cte de Las Cases" [To Mr. Foucauld, former second officer of the French Imperial Army. Passy 19. September 1840 by Count de Las Cases]

This inscription by the famous memorialist dates from the year Napoleon's mortal remains were returned to France, a few days before the Belle Poule frigate arrived in St. Helena to collect the coffin. Las Cases inscribed this copy at a turning point in history, as the world was once again turning to the remote island where the Emperor was exiled and buried. A second resurrection was to occur with the triumphant return of the imperial coffin:

"Frozen sky, pure sun. - Oh! shines in history,
Of the mournful imperial triumph torch!
May the people forever keep you in their memory,
Beautiful day like glory,
Cold as the grave" (Le Retour de l'Empereur, Victor Hugo).
The famous compilation of memories and confidences of Napoleon in exile was considered from the beginning to be a true masterpiece which had a lasting effect on Napoleonic legacy. Inscriptions by Las Cases on his most famous work are extremely rare. Las Cases wrote these words to another faithful servant of the Empire, at a time when one of the most important events in Napoleonic history was unfolding: the long voyage of so-called “Mission des cendres”. Las Cases was to be part of this expedition and abandoned due to ill health. He was replaced by his son who had shared his captivity in St Helena and was to publish, like his father, an account of his journey with the Emperor's remains. Las Cases did, however, attend the lavish funeral ceremony at the Invalides, true to his words from the Mémorial: "The heavens blessed my efforts by allowing me to go all the way".

An exceptional copy with a rare meaningful signed autograph inscription, on the iconic work at the origin of Napoleonic mythology, handsomely set in a contemporary binding with Romantic gilt motifs.

Edition illustrated with 16 original watercolours by Auguste Leroux, engraved on copper by Delzers and Feltesse, one of 90 numbered copies on Imperial Japan paper.
Bound in navy blue half morocco with corners, spine with four raised bands decorated with gilt pointillé and triple gilt panels with typographic motifs, gilt date at foot, gilt fillet borders on marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, gilt edges, contemporary binding signed by Bernasconi. 
As stated in the justification of the print run for the copies on Imperial Japan paper, our copy is complete with its two suites: one in colour with remarques and the other in colour.
In addition, our copy is exceptionally enriched with 2 original drawings by Auguste Leroux, one heightened with watercolour, signed with his initials and placed at the beginning of the volume, just after the justification of the print run. 
A fine copy, perfectly bound and enriched with two original drawings.

Very rare first edition of the author's very first work, in which he clearly sought to draw attention during this period of revival of the national stud farms, abolished during the Revolution and officially reinstated in 1806 (see Mennessier de La Lance II, 138).

Contemporary full marbled fawn calf, flat spine richly gilt with garlands, Greek keys, floral tools and geometric motifs, green morocco title labels, gilt rolls on the almost faded caps, gilt ornamental borders on covers, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt fillet on edges, worn corners, sprinkled edges.

Facing the title page, signed autograph inscription by Louis de Maleden to "Messieurs Talendier et Laforest," in which he mentions the publication of his Plan organique, which appeared in 1805 followed this first work.

Ex-libris label of Waldemar Schwalbe, dated 1937, pasted on the front pastedown.

Rare first edition, complete with its 17 plates, including 2 maps, 2 colored facsimiles of Japanese view and plan (view of Yedo, plan of Nagasaki), and 13 colored facsimiles of natural history drawings. (See Cordier, Japonica, 549 and Sinica, 2128. Numa Broc, Asie, 89-90.)

Some minor foxing, a faint dampstain on the final leaves, small restorations to the verso of the facsimiles.

Contemporary half green shagreen, spine slightly faded, with raised bands framed by gilt fillets, double gilt compartments with decorative tools, boards framed with a blind-stamped fillet, marbled paper boards slightly soiled, combed endpapers and pastedowns, painted edges.

A career diplomat, Charles de Chassiron (1818–1871) was part of Baron Gros’s diplomatic mission to Japan in 1858. He boarded the corvette *Laplace* with the other members of the mission in Shanghai on September 6, 1858, arrived at Shimoda on the 14th at 10 a.m., left during the night of September 19, landed in Edo (Tokyo) on the 26th, stayed until October 12, and departed the country from Nagasaki on October 22.

Chassiron’s *Notes* are a nearly verbatim transcription of the journal he kept during his stay; the appendix contains the text of the Franco-Japanese treaty signed on October 9. His travel journal thus represents an important milestone in the history of Franco-Japanese relations. His entries concerning Edo are particularly valuable for their care, precision, and integrity. Throughout Chassiron’s text runs a tension between the anxious caution of a disoriented diplomat and the observations of a traveler fascinated by Japan’s social order and industrial arts. The French, more perplexed than the British before Japanese reality, nonetheless allowed themselves to be charmed by it, bringing back the image of a feudal Japan rooted in espionage, and that of an artistic Japan. (Cf. Numa Broc.)

Very rare first edition illustrated with 40 lithographs (cf. Colas 1581, Mayfair, Algeria, 751, Tailliart, 1001, *Iconographie de l'Algérie*).

A few minor spots of foxing; the front free endpaper is slightly creased at the margin, not affecting the text.

The 40 plates, printed on 37 leaves, are arranged as follows: 37 black lithographs including one plan and one folding map (plates 11–12, [37–38], and [39–40] are printed on single leaves).

Among the rarest and most beautiful illustrated albums devoted to Algeria, this edition comprises 40 lithographic plates printed in black across 37 leaves. The map of the Regency of Algiers and the views of Algiers and Constantine, being in a larger format, each count as two. So rare is this album that even Esquer, author of the monumental *Iconographie de l'Algérie*, was only able to consult a copy containing 35 plates.

Contemporary binding in half green Russia morocco, flat spine with blind double fillets, marbled paper-covered boards with some light spotting, green vellum corners slightly rubbed.

Lithographed by Simon fils after drawings by Robert Jungmann, the plates depict costumes and views of Algeria. The author, who presents himself as a Polish refugee, explains in the preface that he served for nearly four years in the Armée d’Afrique and that the purpose of his work is "to provide a short but accurate account of Algiers and its surroundings, a region that is increasingly drawing our interest".

The text is divided into four chapters: Geographical overview; historical notes; costumes, manners and customs of the native populations, their methods of warfare, etc.; and the state of industry, commerce, arts and sciences. It includes precise descriptive information on Algiers, Blida, Médéa, Oran, Tlemcen, and Constantine, as well as commentary on history, climate, agriculture, and colonization. The illustrations include a map of the Regency of Algiers with hand-colored outlines also showing a large part of the Regency of Tunis; a portrait of Hussein Pasha, the last Dey of Algiers; picturesque views (View of Algiers, viewpoint near Mustapha Pacha in Algiers, partial view of Algiers' main square, Bab-el-Oued gate, marabout of Sidi-Yakoub, a fountain near Algiers, views of Constantine and Bône); and plates depicting inhabitants in traditional dress: Arab horsemen, Bedouins, Moorish women, Kabyles, Kouloughlis, Jewish men and women of Algiers, marabouts, Algerian corsairs, Zouaves, etc.

First edition of the French translation by Marie Bonaparte, one of 70 numbered copies on pur fil, the only deluxe paper copies.

Covers slightly and marginally toned, otherwise a handsome and rare copy.

The text is preceded by a translation of the short story Gradiva by Wilhelm Jensen, rendered by E. Zak and G. Sadoul.

It is followed by a psychoanalytic study of the dream and the fascination experienced by the young archaeologist Norbert Hanold for the image of a young woman sculpted in a bas-relief from the collections of the Museum of Rome.

Autograph letter signed by Jean Cocteau, marked with his famous star, addressed to his great love, the actor Jean Marais. One page penned in black ink on a single sheet.
Traces of folds, horizontal creases inherent to mailing, two ink spots on the blank verso not affecting the text.
A magnificent love letter from Cocteau to Marais, who together formed one of the most iconic artistic couples of the 20th century. Set against the backdrop of turmoil and the German Occupation, their unbreakable bond is embodied in this letter of the writer, filled with desperate tones.

First edition, one of 105 numbered copies on vélin neige, the only deluxe copies issued after 12 on pur fil.
Handsome copy.

First edition, one of 158 copies printed on pur fil paper, following only 45 on Hollande.

A fine copy.

First edition, one of the review copies.

A handsome copy, complete with the wraparound band: "Les rois mages racontés par Michel Tournier".

Inscribed and signed by Michel Tournier to the Belgian literary critic Pol Vandromme: "Pour Pol Vandromme en toute amitié."

First edition, with no deluxe paper copies issued.

Slight, insignificant tears to the foot of the covers.

A handsome copy.

First edition, one of 70 numbered copies on pure thread paper, ours being one of 15 hors commerce copies lettered under Ingres covers, deluxe copies after 2 reimposed on pure thread laid paper hors commerce reserved for Jacques Hébertot and 13 holland paper copies.
Minor marginal tears of no consequence to the covers.
Handsome and rare copy of this response by Albert Camus to Jean-Paul Sartre's "Les mains sales".

First edition of the French translation.

Contemporary half red shagreen binding, spine with four raised bands tooled with gilt dotted fillets and decorated with double gilt panels featuring a scattered pattern of gilt stars, minor rubbing to the spine, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, speckled edges.

Occasional light foxing.

A further compilation bringing together several successes of the troubadour from Sète, including "Le temps ne fait rien à l'affaire", "Dans l'eau de la claire fontaine", "La traîtresse", "La ballade des cimetières"; "La complainte des filles de joie", "Tonton Nestor - La noce de Jeannette", "Le temps passé" and "La fille à cent sous".

A pleasant copy despite very slight rubbing to the margins of the sleeve.

A name and an initial in blue ballpoint pen at the head of the second panel of the sleeve.

Manuscript signature of Georges Brassens in the left margin of the front panel of the sleeve.

New compilation of the celebrated songs by the troubadour from Sète, including "La mauvaise réputation", "Le parapluie", "Le petit cheval", "Le fossoyeur", "Le gorille", "Corne d'auroch", "La chasse aux papillons" and "Hécatombe".
Inevitable creasing and light rubbing along the margins of the record sleeve.

A small ballpoint pen doodle in blue ink on the lower cover.
Autograph signature of Georges Brassens in the lower right margin of the upper cover.

Published in the year of the first edition, one of 950 numbered copies on wove paper.
Publisher’s binding after the original design by Paul Bonet.
Attractive copy, complete with its original flexible cardboard slipcase.

Pirate edition of 1812, imprint dated 1796. It features the exact pagination of the genuine 1796 edition, as well as the 13 plates and 2 frontispieces by Monnet, Mlle Gérard and Fragonard fils engraved by Baquoy, Duplessi-Bertaux, Dupréel, Godefroy, Langlois, Lemire, Lingée, Masquelier, Patas, Pauquet, Simonet and Trière. The pirate edition is identified by the letters “R. p. D.” in the plates' lower margins, as they have been retouched by Delvaux. In addition, the fillet preceding the date on the title-page is wavy, and the title is presented in seven lines rather than eight.

Bound in full morocco, slight rubbing on the corners, all edges gilt, splendid binding signed by Hardy.

A very fine copy in a magnificent decorated full morocco binding by Hardy.

Autograph letter by Jean Cocteau, signed with his famous star, addressed to his great love, the actor Jean Marais. Dated by the author July 1940. One and a half pages in black ink on a sheet.
Two small marginal tears not affecting the text. Traces of transverse folds inherent to posting.
Magnificent love letter from Cocteau to Marais, who formed one of the most legendary artistic couples of the 20th century. Against the backdrop of defeat and German Occupation, their unbreakable bond is embodied in this letter from the writer with its desperate accents.
Published in the Lettres à Jean Marais, 1987, p. 157.
This missive from a love-stricken Cocteau was written shortly after the Armistice of June 22, 1940 marking the end of the French defeat. Marais, mobilized, had joined the front in May 1940 while Cocteau had taken refuge in Perpignan. Communication in these troubled times proved difficult: "Mon Jeannot, j'attends toujours ta réponse, mais avec une confiance absolue. Ce n'est pas pour rien que notre étoile nous a rapprochés l'un de l'autre, et sans doute, fallait-il que mes lettres ne t'arrivent pas et que je souffre de mon silence" ["My Jeannot, I am still waiting for your response, but with absolute confidence. It is not for nothing that our star brought us closer to one another, and no doubt, it was necessary that my letters not reach you and that I suffer from my silence"] "Tu es né chef, je suis né chef. Et sous notre étoile rien de ce que nous [...] ne peut s'annexer ni se perdre. Le principal est de se taire et d'attendre. [entre guillemets :] les choses ont une manière à elles d'arriver." C'est à nous de le savoir et de les laisser faire [...]" ["You were born a leader, I was born a leader. And under our star nothing of what we [...] can be annexed or lost. The main thing is to remain silent and wait. [in quotation marks:] things have their own way of happening." It is up to us to know this and let them do so [...]"]
The Cocteau - Marais partnership would soon return to Paris, and endure the torments of the German occupation which would ban the revival of their scandalous play Les Parents terribles, which had enjoyed great success in 1939.