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267 results
  5. Voyage au bout de la nuit
    Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE
    Voyage au bout de la nuit
    Denoël & Steele|Paris 1932|12 x 19 cm|relié
    A reprint from 1932 published under the address in the rue de L'Abbé-de-l'Epée, light green publisher’s catalogue at end, fictional mention of the 38th edition.
    Lacks (filled in) to spine and lower cover.
    Half black morocco over marbled paper boards by Goy & Vilaine, spine in six compartments, marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt.
    Autograph inscription signed by Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Fany Abel.
    A nicely bound copy.
    Sold
  7. Hommage fait à Marguerite Duras du Ravissement de Lol V. Stein
    Jacques LACAN
    Hommage fait à Marguerite Duras du Ravissement de Lol V. Stein
    In Cahiers Renaud-Barrault|Paris Décembre 1965|14 x 19 cm|agrafé

    LACAN Jacques. Hommage fait à Marguerite Duras du Ravissement de Lol V. Stein
    In Cahiers Renaud-Barrault, Paris Décembre 1965, 14 x 19 cm, stapled
    First edition.
    Autograph inscription signed and dated by Jacques Lacan to Monsieur and Madame Claude Lefort, to whom he gives his best wishes for 1966.
    Covers slightly and marginally sunned but not seriously, one small tear to edge of lower cover, one other to foot of spine.
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  11. Manuscrit et tapuscrit complet inédit constituant l'élaboration de Thomas l'Obscur à partir du tapuscrit de Thomas le Solitaire
    Maurice BLANCHOT
    Manuscrit et tapuscrit complet inédit constituant l'élaboration de Thomas l'Obscur à partir du tapuscrit de Thomas le Solitaire
    s. d. [1938]|13.50 x 21 cm|454 feuillets dont 322 manuscrits
    BLANCHOT Maurice
    Complete manuscript and typescript, being an early version of Thomas l'Obscur [Thomas the Obscure] 1938, 135 x 210 mm (5 5/16 x 8 1/4 ”) et 210 x 270 mm (8 1/4 x 10 5/8 ”), 454 leaves among which 322 manuscripts ones
    An exceptional complete set, for a large part unpublished, of 454 manuscript and typescript leaves with copious corrections and deletions, being an early version of Thomas l'Obscur, which sheds light on the process of the composition of the work based on the mythic earlier typescript: Thomas le Solitaire [Thomas the Solitary].
    The document is made up of two states: a manuscript of 275 leaves, and a collection of 179 leaves composed of 132 leaves of the typescript (entirely corrected) of Thomas le Solitaire, and 47 inserted manuscript leaves.
    The 275-page manuscript finishes with a reference to the typescript-manuscript document, which itself has a double ending, for Thomas le Solitaire (typescript) and the end of Thomas l'Obscur (manuscript).
    It would appear that the typescript-manuscript is a first step in the work leading up to the manuscript proper, but together with it forms an inseparable whole since the references from one to the other are constant. The pages of the manuscript in fact regularly contain cross-references to the typescript-manuscript and the sequence of pages is interrupted several times to include the numbering of the typescript-manuscript.
    The manuscript version, as well as the typescript-manuscript version both show significant differences from the published version (which appeared in 1941). Some passages from the text of Thomas le Solitaire are still included in the manuscript and variances with the published novel are manifold.
    This important document, therefore, marks a key moment in the work of the author, where the novel was still in full-blown development.
    This unique set undoubtedly constitutes the most important source of information on the development of the novels of one of the most closed-off writers of the 20th century after Kafka.
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  13. Antologia del Surrealisme - Poetes surrealistes francesos
    Paul ÉLUARD
    Antologia del Surrealisme - Poetes surrealistes francesos
    S. n.|s. l. s. d. [ca. 1933-1934]|21 x 29.70 cm|en feuilles
    Since 1927, Paul Eluard regularly stays in Catalonia. In this month of September 1929 spent with Salvador Dali in Cadaques, he met the poet JV Foix (1893-1887), figure of Barcelona's avant-garde, close to Joan Miro and Federico Garcia Lorca, translator and Philippe Soupault Pierre Reverdy. The two men decide to publish all the editions L'Amic de les Arts the first bilingual anthology of surrealist poetry. Announced in 1933 and then in 1934, it unfortunately never happen due to financial difficulties of the publisher. In 1934 published by Editions Jeanne Bucher too distant collection, probably inspired the project initiated by Eluard and Foix: Small anthology of surrealism with an introduction by Georges Hugnet.

    This valuable file, which therefore includes the unique selection of Eluard for the French section of the book, is a unique testimony of this ambitious project remained unfinished. Thus, the French poet chooses, besides his own poems, works by Hans Arp, André Breton, René Char, René Crevel, Salvador Dali, Georges Hugnet, ELT Mesens, Benjamin Peret, Philippe Soupault and Tristan Tzara. Having collected the texts with his surrealist friends in the form of typescripts or printed sheets - when he is not obliged to copy itself to the hand! - Eluard began to annotate, correct and paginate. Then builds our eyes a poetic panorama of great wealth, which provides a glimpse accurately such a book should have been published.

    All showing remarkable research of Paul Eluard for the first anthology of surrealist poetry, unpublished.







    Detailed inventory of the record:
    • Hans Arp, "Configuration", 2 typescript pages, 26.8 x 21 cm, with hand Eluard corrections and the words "Unreleased 1933" in pencil;
    • André Breton, "The Mystery Corset", "A castle instead of the head," "In view of the gods," "The verb to be," "Cohabitation", "A man and a woman absolutely white" and "The sphinx vertebral" (excerpts from The white hair Revolver, Paris, Editions des Cahiers Libres, 1932), 10 printed pages, 19 x 14.2 cm, and "You shall know later," one leaflet typescript on pink paper 27.5 x 21.5 cm, with hand Eluard various title mentions, deletions and corrections in pencil;
    • André Breton, René Char, Paul Eluard, "Natural History" (from Slow work, Paris, surreal Editions, 1930), 1 printed sheet, 20,3 x 19 cm, with hand Eluard various title endorsements and deletions in pencil;
    • André Breton, Paul Eluard, "general paralysis of simulation test" (from The Immaculate Conception, Paris, surreal Editions, 1930), 3 printed sheets, 22.8 x 18 cm, with hand Eluard various references title in pencil;
    • André Breton and Philippe Soupault, extract of Magnetic Fields, one sheet in ink manuscript by Eluard, 27.8 x 21.8 cm;
    • René Char, "Beautiful building and foreboding," "Love," "fatal Sleep," "Poetic Spirit", "The Suns singers", "Observers and dreamers," "The Cougar DAF de Sade "5 typescripts pink sheets on paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm, with hand Eluard various references to pencil and ink;
    • Salvador Dali, "The Great Masturbator" 8 typescripts pink sheets on paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm, with hand Eluard diverse as Information at the lead;
    • Paul Eluard, "The Heart", "remarks Simples", "Which ones? "" The Invention "," The Lover "," No hard feelings "," Absences "," The orange hair ... "" My love ... "" A loud ... "," The Queen of diamonds "" a loss of sight in the direction of my body, "" like them ", 6 sheets typescripts on pink paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm and 7 printed sheets (from the bottom of a lifetime, Marseille Les Cahiers du Sud, 1926) with the hand of Eluard various statements and deletions to the lead;
    • Georges Hugnet, "The Shepherd's Hour", "I had that night ..." "Behold the disease," "My home wood ',' Embark ...", "The Road ..." "When water rocks ... "," Children who isolate yourself ... "" Beauty sleeping ... "9 typescripts sheets, 26.8 x 20.8 cm, with hand Eluard and hand Hugnet under various terms;
    • René Crevel, "So, what a wonderful afternoon ..." 2 typescript pages, 26.8 x 20.8 cm, with hand Eluard the word "Babylon 1927" in pencil;
    • Gui Rosey, "I sing just man", "Heaven", 5 printed sheets and typescripts, 27,5x about 21.5 cm, with hand Eluard various references, deletions and corrections in ink;
    • Benjamin Peret, "Bridge Commander," "Babord for all", "On the hill", "Sun worn quivering stone road," "Pale week", "Benjamin Peret Memoirs," "The fourth dancer," "The children of the quadrilateral "Four years after the dog," "Mystery of my birth," "the blood shed", "the chips of the field," "and so on", "arm in arm" 11 typescripts sheets on pink paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm, with hand Eluard two lines in ink;
    • Tristan Tzara, "The great lament of my darkness," "derailment", "Telescope", "On a wrinkle of the sun", "bifurcation", "the darling of the mountains", "Melting years", "The Digger looks, "" Mr. Aa the antiphilosophe "" Now or never ", 11 sheets typescripts on pink paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm, with hand Eluard various ink as references and graphite;
    • ELT Mesens "Rightly or wrongly," from full Woman (1931), 1 leaf manuscript in pencil by Eluard, 27.3 x 21.5 cm.
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  16. A la recherche du temps perdu
    Marcel PROUST
    A la recherche du temps perdu
    Grasset • Nrf|Paris 1913-1927|12.50 x 19 cm|13 volumes brochés sous 7 chemises et étuis de percaline bleu-violet
    First edition on ordinary paper with all the characteristics of the first impression for the first volume (fault to Grasset, upper cover dated 1913, no contents table, publisher's catalogue at end); first edition, no justification for the second volume, on ordinary paper; the rest are numbered first editions on pur fil paper, the only reimposed large paper copies.
    This complete collection of “In search of lost time” comprises the following titles: “Swann's Way”, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”, “The Guermantes Way” (2 vols), “Sodom and Gomorrah” (3 vols), “The Prisoner” (2 vols), “The Fugitive” (2 vols), and “Time Regained” (2 vols).
    Ex libris pasted onto top of ffep of first volume.
    A handsome, unsophisticated, and exceptionally fresh set, in 7 chemises and slipcases of dark blue cloth.
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  19. Scènes de la vie privée
    Honoré de BALZAC
    Scènes de la vie privée
    Imprimerie de Madame-Delaunay|Paris 1832|13 x 20.50 cm|4 volumes reliés
    Edition in large part original, the last two volumes contain first edition: "The Council", "The Exchange", "The Duty of a Woman", "The Honeymooners," "The beginning of the Woman of Thirty" "Rendezvous", "the Finger of God", "the two meetings", "atonement" (five chapters, unrelated, form the first draft of the Woman of thirty years).
    Binders half navy sheepskin, back with four false nerves decorated with dots and gold jewels, marbled paper plates, guards and contreplats of handmade paper, sprinkled edges, slightly posterior bindings dating from the second half of the nineteenth.
    donos pen heads of the guards of the first two volumes.
    Some foxing mainly affecting the end of the fourth and final volume.
    Very rare and enigmatic autograph signed by Honoré de Balzac: Le Duc, the author of Balzac. "

    Autographs erasures on the courtesy title and the dedicatee's name indicate that Balzac has resumed shipment.
    Thus the author address initially in his book "Mr. Delmar" German banker and brother of Ms. Couturier St. Clair (in which Balzac read his play The School for households in March 1839) before strike his name, in a gesture indicative of his stormy relationship with the world of finance and its representatives.
    The author then dedicated his book "Le Duc" with no other indication, indicating a real familiarity with the dedicatee which however included in any of Balzac's biographies.
    It could therefore be the character "Duke" of the part played by Jemma Vautrin at Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in 1840, before the play, written in hopes to repay the debts of Balzac, is prohibited.

    It would hardly be surprising that Balzac, who was fond of nicknames, and has dedicated these scenes of private life - including a new original story recounts a silver perverting the judgment of an artist - to one of the unfortunate players who undergoes with the wrath of critics and censorship.
    With this dedication palimpsest, Balzac seems to assert the supremacy of the art on the financial vain inclinations.
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  20. A la recherche du temps perdu
    Marcel PROUST
    A la recherche du temps perdu
    In Search of Lost Time
    Grasset • Nrf|Paris 1913-1927|12 x 19 cm|13 volumes brochés sous coffrets
    A la recherche du temps perdu [In Search of Lost Time]

    Grasset & Nrf | Paris 1913-1927 | first volume 12 x 19 cm & second volume 13 x 19.5 cm & other volumes 14,5 x 19,5 cm | original wrappers with custom boxes.
    First edition. First volume with all the characteristics of the first issue (Grasset error, the first plate dated 1913, no table of contents, publisher's catalogue at end), one of the advance (service de presse) copies (the head of the second plate marked with the publisher's initials). First edition on ordinary paper with a false edition statement stating the fifth for the second volume. Numbered first editions on pur fil paper, the re-impositions on grand papier (deluxe copy) only for the other volumes.
    This complete set of In Search of Lost Time bears three important, attractive inscriptions from Marcel Proust to Lucien Descaves:
    «à monsieur Lucien Descaves. / Hommage de l'auteur. / Marcel Proust» in Du côté de chez Swann.
    «à monsieur Lucien Descaves. / Respectueux hommage de l'auteur. / Marcel Proust» in Le Côté de Guermantes II – Sodome et Gomorrhe I.
    «à monsieur Lucien Descaves. / Admiratif hommage. / Marcel Proust» in Sodome et Gomorrhe II-1.
    Each of the thirteen volumes is present in a full black morocco box, spines in the Jansenist style with date at foot, the interior lined with khaki green sheep by Goy & Vilaine. The copy of Swann is, furthermore, preserved within a chemise and slipcase of decorative paper and edged with ochre cloth, as is typically the case with books from the library of Lucien Descaves. Inscribed copies of Swann's Way are themselves of the utmost rarity, but this one is moreover testimony to the 'young' author's first attempts to approach the prestigious Académie Goncourt, of which Lucien Descaves was one of the founding members.
    The stormy deliberations of 1919 are often brought up with regard to Proust and the Goncourt, but what people usually omit to mention is that, urged on by Grasset (cf. letters to M. Barrès and R. de Flers, v. XII, letters 127 and 155), Proust manifested an ardent desire, right from 1913 on, to be submitted to the verdict of the Ten, and made a number of moves in this direction:
    «My publisher [had me send] my book...to the Goncourt judges. Officially, it's not too late, they're still accepting books, but I think the winner is already more or less decided. There remains the hope that if I could find – not having one as yet – someone to act as advocate for the book, who could make sure it was discussed, it would carve a way for my work so that they'd read it, which is all I could hope for... I am very much afraid that no one will read me, because it's so long and tightly packed. But perhaps...you have some friends in the Académie Goncourt. There are two judges with whom it's not worth bothering. The elder Rosny, because Madame Tinayre (whom I don't know but who, it appears, has a predilection for my writing) has already recommended the book to him (without having read the rest); and Léon Daudet who will most likely not take my part, but with whom I am too closely tied to be able to put myself forward without making a fool of myself. Finally, Louis de Robert, (all this off the top of my head, for this letter that I'm writing is my first step in all this) has written to Paul Margueritte. But I don't think that'll have much effect. Perhaps you know someone else? There are, I believe, Geffroy, Rosny junior, Elémir Bourges, Descaves (but I doubt he'd come back for this), Mirbeau...In any case, perhaps all this will be in vain. I just wanted to mention it, in case,» (letter of the 8 November – the date the printers finished the book – to Madame de Pierrebourg, XII, 140).
    Madame de Pierrebourg did not know anyone and Louis de Robert's efforts came up against an obstacle, namely Proust's independent means: «As for the prize, there's something quite comic in that at a time when I'm...more or less ruined...my fortune should be an obstacle!» (letter to Louis de Robert, XII, 164). For his part, Léon Daudet – to whom he had, in fact, turned for support – held his age against him: «As for the Goncourt...I shall certainly mention your book to my friends. But...but the majority don't want to vote for an author over the age of 35 [underlined]...I, happily, do not share this disposition,» (XII, 144).
    Resigned, Proust nonetheless hopes to be mentioned by the Academicians: «It seems impossible that I should have the prize...In any case, if my book is discussed by the Goncourt jury, it will in some measure make up for the distance I've been at for some years from literary life, which means that at my age I am less well-known than a number of people just starting out. Perhaps in seeing my book deliberated over by the jury, some people will decide to read it, and who knows if there won't be among them some friend to my thinking who without this would never have discovered it,» (XII, 170). But none of the members referred to Swann during their deliberations and only the elder Rosny, according to Proust «gave [me] a voice» (XVIII, 221).
    When In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower did win the prize in 1919 (despite the same obstacles of Proust's age and fortune) Lucien Descaves disagreed with the decision, preferring instead Roland Dorgelès' Les Croix de bois. Proust mentions his animosity in a letter to the Abbé Mugnier: «I'm sorry that you found out [about the Goncourt prize] from Monsieur Descaves, because he must have accompanied this piece of good news with some rather unflattering comments. In effect, he had campaigned against me and presented the results in the following terms: Monsieur Proust has the prize; Monsieur Dorgelès has the originality of talent and youth. You can't have it all.» Proust goes on to add: «Don't think I harbor the least resentment towards Monsieur Descaves. Those who don't like my books are of exactly the
    same opinion as me,» (XVIII, 333).
    The copies of he Guermantes Way and Sodom and Gomorrah that Proust gave to this harsh critic of his are proof of the honesty of this statement and the respect he had for the author despite their differences. For his part, 'the Bear', as Lucien Descaves called himself, took great care of his copy of Swann in protecting it with a slipcase and chemise, no doubt aware of the importance of this founding work of modern literature. Nonetheless, one can note that he stopped reading Sodom at page 153, after which the quires are no longer opened.
    In his study on Proust and the Goncourt prize, Luc Fraysse highlights that «the awarding of the Goncourt prize to Proust in 1919 for In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is a major literary event in 20th century history...It was an unparalleled summit in the life of the Académie Goncourt...[and] a decisive and definitive turning point in the literary evolution [of Proust]...[who] went – with no intermediate stage – from relative obscurity to world-wide fame. It was the Goncourt prize that led a larger readership to discover the depth and importance of Proust's work.»
    An exceptional set of In Search of Lost Time as it appeared, bearing three attractive signed autograph inscriptions from Marcel Proust to Lucien Descaves.
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  22. Du côté de chez Swann
    Marcel PROUST
    Du côté de chez Swann
    [Swann's Way [In Search of Lost Time]]
    Grasset|Paris 1913|11.50 x 18.50 cm|relié

    First edition, second issue, on ordinary paper, with the printer's date of 8 November 1913, and the corrected typographic error to Grasset on the title page, without the index.
    Half grey morocco by Thomas Boichot, spine in six compartments, date at foot, covers and spine mounted on guards, top edge gilt, slipcase trimmed with grey morocco.


    Inscribed copy to Count Primoli: “Hommage d'attachement respectueux et bien vif [As a token of my respectful and heartfelt affection].” 


    Joseph Napoléon, Count Primoli (1851-1927), was the great nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. Closely tied to the imperial family during the Second Empire, he was later a faithful visitor to his beloved aunt, Princess Mathilde's salon, held at her mansion in the rue de Berri. His refined and spiritual conversation was much admired there. As a passionate book collector, he also met some of the great writers of his time: Gustave Flaubert, Théophile Gautier, the Goncourt brothers and even Guy de Maupassant. It was also there that he got to know, from the 1890s on, the young Marcel Proust. The two men forged an easy friendship. The Count was also devoted to strengthening literary and cultural ties between Rome (his city of birth) and Paris, and invited the writer several times to visit the Italian capital. Proust never went, but in his eyes, Primoli's letters alone carried “a little of the charm of Rome” (letter from Proust to Primoli, early 1907, cited in: Pasquali C., Proust, Primoli, la moda, p. 26). On the occasion of the death of Princess Mathilde, who had made their meeting possible, in 1904, Proust wrote to the Count: “allow me to say only that I shed bitter tears with you, because I loved the Princess with an infinite respect – and because it gives me so much pain to think of you so unhappy, you who are so good and for whom one would wish with all one's heart happiness; with your sad and wounded heart, one wishes that every evil blow would spare you.” (4 January 1904, ibid., p. 21).
    When Swann's Way was published in November 1913, Count Primoli was one of the very first to receive a copy personally inscribed by the author. A letter from Proust dated from early January 1914 mentions the present copy: “Dear Sir, When my book came out you were one of the very first people I thought of. From the first day we were sending out books, I kept questioning my valet: ‘has Count Primoli's copy gone out?' He told me it had and it was true. Just today, when I received your card (so amusing and lovely) where you talk of the Mona Lisa's escort ‘in the guise of a musician,' I said to my valet: ‘Look, a card from Count Primoli.' He looked at it. ‘What? The Count is in Rome? But I sent the book to Paris!' I had a moment of fury and disappointment. Perhaps your concierge has sent your copy on to Rome. But just to make sure, I'm sending a second copy to Rome. Only, I have none left of the first edition. You'll find one in Paris when you come back, it's been there for some time. I can only send you a copy of the second printing, which, by the by, has fewer grave mistakes than the first. But I am too sick and too unhappy at the moment to correct them all myself...” (ibid., p. 51). This copy, then, is the copy of the second issue that Proust send to Primoli in Rome and mentions in his letter.


    A fine copy bearing witness to the friendly links between Marcel Proust and Count Primoli.

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  23. L'amour baroque - Manuscrit autographe complet signé à la présentation inédite
    René FALLET
    L'amour baroque - Manuscrit autographe complet signé à la présentation inédite
    Baroque Love
    S. n.|s. l. 1969-1970|-|en feuilles sous couvertures cartonnée
    L'amour baroque [Baroque Love] – Complete signed unpublished autograph presentation manuscript.

    Autograph manuscript signed, with edits in black, red, green, purple and blue felt-tip pen on printed scrap paper, with a number of additions, corrections, and deletions.

    241 leaves, of which 238 marked with their folio number and 3 unnumbered, various formats (but essentially 4to and 8vo, rectos only with the occasional annotations or collages to verso) in salmon pink covers with title and autograph inscription to the publisher Alex Grall as well as black chemise with autograph titlepiece, signed once more on the inside cover. Leaves with hole-punched perforations.

    The complete manuscript of the first version of L'Amour baroque, written between the 18th December 1969 and 16th June 1970, and published in April 1971 by René Julliard.
    The book, the first in a sentimental trilogy (followed by Y a-t-il un docteur dans la salle ? [Is there a doctor in the house?] and L'Angevine [The Angevin Woman], is in the form of a personal diary. Its dominant theme – love – is one of the author's favorite topics. The narrator, who recounts his passionate encounter with a woman grieving the loss of her daughter, plays with the conventions of the novel – its language is colorful and lively. It's worth remembering that the works of René Fallet, with their florid style marked by Rabelais, Molière and Marcel Aymé, in their turn inspired the films of Michel Audiard, René Clair and Jean Girault.
    This manuscript, presented by René Fallet to the publisher Alex Grall, should not be mistaken for just an ordinary manuscript. It is, rather, a creative physical object mixing visual tricks, word games, collages and sketches (flowers, naked women, grotesque features) in color on a multitude of bits of scrap paper. In fact, Fallet gathered together numerous leaves of headed paper (ORTF, Radiodiffusion and Belgian TV, The French Communist Party, Denoël and Gallimard the publishers, Dépêche TV, Miroir du Cyclisme, L'Équipe, First National City Bank, The French Mythological Society, the Hotel Intercontinental in Düsseldorf, Belgian National Railways, Ministry of Social Services and others) that he's used here as background to his manuscript to give a dynamic, graphic effect. He also uses the back of advertising fliers (Paic washing up liquid, Kleenex tissues), original press photos (pack photos in the Paris-Roubaix amateur cycling competition, a scene of Tom Wesselmann admiring naked ladies), publicity photos for films (Fahrenheit 451 by François Truffaut with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner), dust jackets (Les Milanais tuent le samedi [The Milanese Kill on a Saturday] by Giorgio Scerbanenco, SAS by Gérard de Villiers, Ils ne pensent qu'à ça [They think of nothing else] by Georges Wolinski), record sleeves (Let it be by the Beatles), pictures from erotic magazines or cartoons (Jean-Jacques Sempé). The entire ensemble is enriched with collages (“French students read a lot of Camus”), not to mention several portraits of himself, including an original photograph of him with Georges Brassens and most notably a nude self-portrait!
    Taken together, the work consciously presents a joyful, effusive and caustic portrait of popular culture at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. Fallet, a distinctly colorful character, who self-defined as an “windscreen-wiper anarchist, going from left to right”, took a mischievous pleasure in subverting – with plenty of humor – certain archetypes of modernity (the pin-up, the housewife, the perfect couple, the sportsman, etc.), not without referencing certain movements in contemporary art (Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme).
    The manuscript shows important differences with the printed text. From a structural point of view, for instance, Fallet modified the demarcations of his 106 chapters, which were organized into three parts in the printed version. He also altered the text in terms of the narrative, the author playing with the names of his characters, each having several different appellations: thus, the husband of the heroine – sometimes known as Jean-Louis in the manuscript – becomes Jean-Claude in the end. Furthermore, Fallet reserved his margins for corrections, but also for numbering lines and above all for marking the date of composition of each section. Thus, we can follow his magisterial progress in the writing process day by day from 18th December 1969 to 16 June 1970. The final leaf, unnumbered, is composed of a list of sections to revise.
    Last but not least, the manuscript reveals that the inspiration for this tale of amorous passion is none other than Mette Ivers, an illustrator with whom Fallet would work and incidentally the wife of Sempé, whose name features very heavily on the versos of the leaves and in the margins.

    A superb manuscript, remarkably made by René Fallet into a veritable physical object.
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  24. Album amicorum, suite de dessins
    Paul GAVARNI, [Paul GAVARNI as] Sulpice Guillaume CHEVALIER
    Album amicorum, suite de dessins
    Album amicorum, a set of drawings
    S. n.|s. l. (vers 1846)|21.50 x 27 cm|relié
    GAVARNI, Sulpice-Guillaume Chevalier, known as Paul. Album amicorum, a set of drawings. N.p., n.d. [but c. 1846], no author given. 27 x 21.5 cm, bound.

    AN ITALIANATE ALBUM OF 52 ORIGINAL DRAWINGS in pen and ink by Paul Gavarni.
    Bound in full green blindstamped shagreen in the Romantic style, bearing the gilt initials ‘SC' (for Sulpice Chevalier, Galvani's real name) on the upper cover and ‘PD' (for Paul Delaroche) on the lower, gilt filet to inside edges. 50 leaves, of which 12 on brown paper, a.e.g. Foxing. A few tears, a few careful restorations.
    48 drawings (14 x 18.7 cm) mounted on to larger paper leaves (overall size 20.5 x 26 cm), with rice-paper guards and 4 drawings executed directly on the album leaves; of which 50 in black ink and mine de plomb, two heightened with wash (a mountainous landscape with figures and “V'lá un nez qu'a coûté cher á metre en couleur”), and two others in pastels and charcoal.
    Titled in black and red ink with the legend “Gavarni”, bearing also the autograph signature of Paul Gavarni in charcoal.
    - 48 drawings in black ink done by Gavarni for Le Diable á Paris: Paris et les Parisiens. Illustrations Les Gens de Paris par Gavarni (Paris, J. Hetzel, 1845-1846), of which 46 bearing autograph captions in black ink.
    - 3 landscapes: two in black ink (one heightened with wash), the third in charcoal and pastels.
    - 1 portrait of a soldier in charcoal and pastels.

    The two charcoal and pastel drawings are juvenilia; the landscape is comparable to Gavarni's Paysage des Pyrénées (1827), now with the Department of Drawings in the Louvre (inv. RF 31377).
    Paul Gavarni (1804-1866), or Guillaume-Sulpice Chevalier to give him his true name, started publishing drawings in the press in the 1830s; he very quickly found success, and began working with La Mode, L'Illustration, and L‘Artiste, as well as La Caricature and Charivari - two of the most famous satirical journals, which helped greatly in establishing his name.
    Gavarni was soon illustrating works such as Paris au XIXéme siècle (Paris, Beauger, 1839), Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (Paris, Curmer, 1840-1842), Le Museum parisien by Louis Huart (Paris, Beauger and Aubert, 1841) and even the series Physiologies. As well as these books, which are among the most sought-after illustrated books of the Romantic period, we should also mention the very handsome Diable á Paris, published in parts by Jules Hetzel, a master of that genre.
    Illustrated with 212 woodcuts, of which 208 after Gavarni (and four after Bertall) and 800 vignettes within the text itself, Le Diable á Paris brings together the work of celebrated writers such as George Sand, Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Théophile Gautier, Charles Nodier and Gérard de Nerval. Its goal? To paint a picture of Parisians - their mores and fashions – in subtle sketches, some journalistic, some literary, but both often humorous: young working class women, courtesans, the middle classes, actors, artists and tradesmen are all caricatured within its pages. It is to that most Parisian of illustrators, Gavarni himself - his style at once subtle yet redoubtable and possessed of a highly spirited sense of irony - that Hetzel entrusted the task of lampooning the foibles of his contemporaries. These drawings are an excellent complement to the texts they illustrate – the publisher having given the artist total freedom in his choice of subjects; and Paul-André Lemoisne, Gavarni's biographer, considers them to be deeply personal.
    Forty eight of the fifty one drawings contained in the present album are studies for Le Diable á Paris. Highly precise and very vibrant, they bear witness to the different stages of Gavarni's working process: first, he would put his drawings down on paper in mine de plomb and ink before transferring them onto wood with a very fine pencil; they would then be cut directly into the wood by the engravers. The few variations between our drawings and the engravings are to do with the captions (eight with changes, two with additions) and to the number of figures (an additional figure has been added in five of the engravings). These studies already show all the incomparable qualities of Gavarni's flair: the study of obscurity and shadows, the expressivity of his bodies and faces, his attention to costume and taste for social satire, as well as a heightened sense of composition even in his working sketches.

    The album comes from the personal collection of Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), most probably having been a gift from Gavarni himself. The binding, which he commissioned, bears the initials ‘SC' (for ‘Sulpice', one of Gavarni's Christian names, and ‘Chevalier', his real surname) on the upper cover and ‘PD' (for Paul Delaroche) on the lower. Delaroche, whose work was praised by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Charles Blanc, Alexandre Dumas and Théophile Gautier, was one of the most highly sought-after history painters at the time and a noted engraver; he was a member of the Institute and, while teaching at the École des Beaux-Arts, he produced a finely executed work of Romantic or anecdotal subjects, which enjoyed huge success. We don't know much about the relationship between the two artists, but Gavarni did make a portrait etching of the painter, a rare example of his work in aquatint (Armelhault, Bocher L'Oeuvre de Gavarni. Lithographies originales et essays d'eau-forte et de procédés nouveaux. Catalogue raisonné, Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1873, p. 595, no. 3; on the same plate is a portrait of Balzac. A trial print of this etching is held at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, inv. 1955.74.3E). They most likely met in some literary circle or other, for instance the La Bohéme du Doyenné, which Gavarni frequented from time to time. In any case, a drawing by Gavarni was included in a collection owned by descendants of Delaroche (Couturier Nicolay sale, Paris, Drouot, 27 April 1994, no. 157). This album, a gift from Gavarni to Delaroche, is therefore a precious and moving witness of his admiration for the Master.

    A superb collection of original drawings by Gavarni for his masterpiece, Le Diable á Paris – Les Gens de Paris, with a prestigious provenance.
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  26. Oeuvres choisies. Etudes de moeurs contemporaines. 1- Les enfants terribles. Traductions en langue vulgaire. Les lorettes. Les actrices. Notices par Théophile Gautier et Laurent-Jan. 2- Fourberies de femmes en matière de sentiment. Clichy. Paris le soir. Notices par Laurent-Jan, Auguste Lireux et Léon Gozlan. 3- Le Carnaval à Paris. Paris le matin. Les étudiants de Paris. Notices par Théophile Gautier, A. Barthet et A. de Soubiran. 4- La vie de jeune homme. Les débardeurs. Notices par P.J. Stahl.
    Paul GAVARNI
    Oeuvres choisies. Etudes de moeurs contemporaines. 1- Les enfants terribles. Traductions en langue vulgaire. Les lorettes. Les actrices. Notices par Théophile Gautier et Laurent-Jan. 2- Fourberies de femmes en matière de sentiment. Clichy. Paris le soir. Notices par Laurent-Jan, Auguste Lireux et Léon Gozlan. 3- Le Carnaval à Paris. Paris le matin. Les étudiants de Paris. Notices par Théophile Gautier, A. Barthet et A. de Soubiran. 4- La vie de jeune homme. Les débardeurs. Notices par P.J. Stahl.
    Hetzel|Paris 1845-1847|19 x 26 cm|4 tomes reliés en 1
    The first edition and first printing of the engravings.
    Contributions from Théophile Gautier, Laurent-Jan, Léon Gozlan, Auguste Lireux and Jules Hetzel under the pseudonym of P.-J. Stahl, among others.
    Contemporary Romantic green shagreen, spine richly gilt with Rocaille tools and gilt fleurons, large frame of fillets and gilt tools to covers, sizeable blindstamped tool to covers, pastedowns with gilt roulette frame, endpapers and pastedowns of white moiré material (soiled), gilt fillet to edges of covers, all edges gilt.
    With a general frontispiece, 14 vignettes (one repeated) and 320 plates, all woodcuts.
    References : Vicaire, III, 953-955 ; Brivois pp.168-171 ; Carteret, III-260-264.
    A remarkable copy with no spotting whatever in a significant contemporary Romantic binding.
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  27. La guérison par l'esprit
    Stefan ZWEIG
    La guérison par l'esprit
    Stock|Paris 1934|13 x 19 cm|broché
    First edition of the French translation, review copy.
    Precious and beautiful autograph signed by French Stefan Zweig to Jules Romains, "In the expensive Jules Romains, which I like as a friend and I admire as a master. Stefan Zweig. "Enriched by autograph dedication of the author an autograph signed by the translator, Alzir Hella:" A Jules Romains, the part of the author and cordially Alzir Hella. "
    Stefan Zweig had met Jules Romains attending members of the Créteil Abbey in the early twentieth century and the two men were quickly linked to a strong friendship. Love one another as a cosmopolitan Europe, they met regularly at the option of multiple crossings of the Old Continent, Hyeres to Berlin via Paris, Vienna or Salzburg.
    In 1925, Zweig discovered the room Elizabethan Volpone Ben Jonson and adapted it in German. He convinced the Romans, who had attended a performance at the Burgtheater in Vienna to draft a French version. The two writers worked on it together, in close cooperation; this version was given by Charles Dullin at the Workshop Theatre in 1928 and was a huge success.
    While the tragedy of war had removed the two men, Romans, for sixty years Zweig - a few months before his suicide - paid him tribute in a book entitled Stefan Zweig, large European (New York, Editions of French House, 1941), which he had sent an autographed copy bound in full morocco.
    This is the Alzir Hella translator, author of the second shipment to Jules Romains, that France owes much to his love of Stefan Zweig: "Man, wrote to him one day the Austrian, you have all my work in hand, you the only one that does. "
    Rare copy with a dedication autograph valuable witness to the friendship between these two great pacifists that were Stefan Zweig and Jules Romains.
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  29. De l'amour
    STENDHAL
    De l'amour
    On love
    Librairie universelle de P. Mongie l'aîné|Paris 1822|10.50 x 17 cm|2 volumes reliés en 1
    2 volumes in 1.
    The first edition of only 150 copies, rare and very sought-after (Clouzot), of this essay written by Stendhal in Milan after his meeting in 1818 with Mathilde Dembrowski (1790-1825), the woman he loved the most sincerely and whom he never saw again after her departure from Italy in 1821. She features in the work under the name of Léonore.
    Contemporary half caramel calf over speckled paper boards, restored. Re-backed to match original, the spine with gilt and blindstamped fillets, marbled pastedowns and endpapers.
    Lacking final leaf with printed titles to cut out.
    An important copy, presented by Stendhal to Paul-Émile Daurand Forgues (known as ‘Old Nick', 1813-1883). His son, Eugène Daurand-Forgues, added a note on one of the endpapers (along with his ex libris): “This copy is the one mentioned in the letter from Beyle to E.D. Forgues on the 29th January 1842.” In this letter, Stendhal wrote: “The paper will be less horrid once you've had the volumes bound and knocked them about a bit. My indifference to my share made me hand in the manuscript and not worry about the quality of the paper. I'm afraid M. Buloz won't get rid of the printer – they told me three years ago he was jealous.” It is easy to be surprised by the author's remarks on the quality of the paper, since the book was printed on vergé. Along with this letter, sent two months before his death to his friend Paul-Émile Daurand Forgues, Stendhal sent – as a sort of testament - the present copy of De l'Amour [On love]. The letter is published in la Pléiade's edition of Stendhal's Correspondance III, pp. 514-515 ; see also Lucien Pinvert, Un ami de Stendhal, le critique E. D. Forgues, Paris, Leclerc, 1915, pp. 19-20.
    Stendhal and Daurand Forgues met at the Cercle des Arts, established in 1836 by Prosper Mérimée and his friends. In charge of the literature section of the liberal newspaper Le Commerce under the pseudonym of Old Nick, the young critic supported Stendhal's novels and the two men became friends. The writer also presented him with an inscribed copy of La Chartreuse de Parme.
    A very attractive copy with a remarkable provenance.
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  32. Vie de Rossini
    STENDHAL
    Vie de Rossini
    Auguste Boulland et Cie|Paris 1824|13 x 20.50 cm|2 volumes reliés en 1
    First edition, first printing (no edition stated), retaining both portraits of Mozart and Rossini as the frontispieces of each volume
    Contemporary Italian brown marbled paper, author's name and red morocco titlepiece to spine, green morocco library label to foot, red speckled edges
    Library stamps to endpapers and title, annotations in biro to verso of final page of contents: "collection musicale André Meyer
    T5 10 1974"
    Discreet and skillful repairs to joints, light foxing (not serious).
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  33. Molloy - Malone meurt - L'innommable
    Samuel BECKETT
    Molloy - Malone meurt - L'innommable
    Molloy - Malone Dies - The Unnamable
    Les Editions de Minuit|Paris 1951-1953|12 x 19 cm|3 volumes brochés
    BECKETT Samuel
    Molloy – Malone meurt – L’Innommable [Molloy – Malone Dies – The Unnamable]
    Les éditions de minuit, Paris 1951-1953, 12 x 19 cm, 3 volumes, original wrappers
    Each the first edition on ordinary paper.
    The first two volumes inscribed by Beckett to his friend the painter Geer (Van Velde) and his wife Lise.
    Spine lightly sunned as usual for Molloy and L’Innommable, a tiny tear (not serious) to foot of spine of the latter.
    “What to say of the sliding planes, the shimmering contours, the cut-out figures in the fog, the balance that any little thing can break, breaking and re-forming themselves under our very eyes? How to talk about the colors that breathe and pant? Of the swarming stasis? Of this world without weight, without force, without shadow? Here everything moves, swims, fells, comes back, falls apart, re-forms. Everything stops, non-stop. One would say it’s the revolt of the internal molecules of a stone a split second before its disintegration. That is literature” (“The Van Veldes’ Art, or the World and the Trousers,” in Cahiers d’Art n°11-12, Paris 1945).
    Beckett here is not talking – despite how it may appear – about his literary oeuvre, but about the paintings of Geer Van Velde, going on to add a few lines later “[Bram] Van Velde paints distance. G[eer] Van Velde paints succession.” This elegy, published on the occasion of the double exhibition of the Van Veldes (Geer at Maeght’s and Bram at the Galerie Mai) is the first important text on these painters, more or less unknown to the public at the time: “We’ve only just started spouting nonsense about the Van Velde brothers, and I’m the first. It’s an honor.” This is also the first critical text written directly in French by a young Irish writer who had not, as yet, published anything in France.
    Thus, the first and most important of Beckett’s writings on art, composed at the dawn of his literary career, establishes – right from the start – a fundamental relationship between his developing work and his friends’ art: “Thus this text has often been read in a hollow or in the mirror, as one of the rare designations of Beckett’s poetry (to come) by the man himself, a sort of anamorphic program of writing,” (Un pantalon cousu de fil blanc: Beckett et l’épreuve critique by Pierre Vilar).
    A real statement of dramaturgical intent, this fundamental text whose introspective value Beckett lays out from the intro
    duction on (“one does nothing but tell stories with words”) ushers in the writer’s most fruitful creative period. In essence, like Apollinaire and Cendrars, Beckett draws from the artistic problems of his contemporaries the catalyst of his own future writing through “the deepest questioning of narrative, figurative or poetical presuppositions” (Pascale Casanova in Beckett l’Abstracteur).
    The major influence of modern painting on the narrative structure – or destructuring – of Beckett’s drama and novels would be pointed out and examined by a number of thinkers, among them Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva and Maurice Blanchot. It was, in fact, with the art of the Van Veldes (first Geer then Bram) that Beckett began to formalize this desire to translate the pictorial question into dramaturgical terms. Thus it was that he rejected Nicolas de Staël’s set design for Godot, since: “the set must come out of the text without adding anything to it. As for the visual comfort of the audience, you can imagine how much I care. Do you really think you can listen with the backdrop of Bram’s set, or see anything other than him?” (Letter to Georges Duthuit, 1952).
    When he met Geer in 1937, “Beckett was going through a major existential crisis and had just been reworking his first novel, Murphy, which had been rejected by a great many publishers. He was lost in alcohol, leaving Ireland and moving once and for all to Paris” (Le Pictural dans l’œuvre de Beckett, Lassaad Jamoussi). He returned from a long artistic journey in Germany, where he was marked by classical works as well as contemporary art – it was during this journey that he discovered Caspar David Friedrich’s Two Men Contemplating the Moon, his source for Waiting for Godot.
    Art was thus at the heart of his creative thinking and the friendship that would tie him to Geer and later his brother Bram and their sister Jacoba (with whom his relationship may have been more than merely friendly), and which would profoundly influence his life and writing. His first writing on art is a short piece on Geer Van Velde, whose works he pressed on his new lover Peggy Guggenheim when she set up her new London gallery. Despite the relative failure of the exhibition (which followed Kandinsky’s), he got his friend a one-year scholarship from Peggy. James Knowlson even thinks that “if Beckett maintained close links with Peggy for a long time, it was first and foremost because she could be convinced to give his artist friends a serious helping hand, starting with Geer Van Velde” (in Beckett, p. 474). Enigmatic, the little piece that Beckett wrote at the time at Peggy’s request already contained a dramaturgical kernel of thought: “Believes painting should mind its own business, i.e. colors. i.e no more say Picasso than Fabritius, Vermeer. Or inversely.”
    Slower to develop, his friendship with Bram and interest in the latter’s painting slowly changed Beckett’s outlook on Geer’s art and when, ten years after his first meeting the brothers, he wrote The World and the Trousers, Beckett brought up to date a duality symbolized by the title, taken from an anecdote given as a legend to the article. The world is the “imperfect” work of God, made in six days, to which the tailor compares the perfection of his trousers, made over six months.
    The link between this anecdote and the Van Velde brothers is perhaps to be found in the second essay Beckett devoted to them, in 1948, “Peintres de l’empêchement” [Painters of the Problem] (Derrière le miroir n° 11/12): “One of them said: I cannot see the object in order to represent it because I am who I am. There are always two sorts of problems – the object-problem and the ‘eye-problem’...Geer Van Velde is an artist of the former sort...Bram Van Velde of the latter.”
    Resistance of the object or impotence of the artist, this tale, the “true primary narrative core in kôan zen form,” (P. Vilar) would later find itself scattered throughout Beckett’s work and would more specifically take center stage in Endgame, whose similarity, by the by, with the art of Geer Van Velde was noted by Roger Blin. “At the time, he was friends with the Dutch brothers Geer and Bram Van Velde, both painters. Geer was a painter in the style of Mondrian. I have the feeling that Beckett saw Endgame as a painting by Mondrian with very tidy partitions, geometric separations and musical geometry,” (R. Blin, “Conversations avec Lynda Peskine” in Revue d’Esthétique).
    Beckett’s growing affinity for Bram Van Velde’s work and the energy he put into promoting his work, especially to the galerie Maeght or his friend the art historian Georges Duthuit, was no doubt to the detriment of his relationship with Geer. Nonetheless, despite some misunderstandings, their friendship remained unbroken; as did the silent but anxious dialogue that the writer maintained with the art of the younger Van Velde brother, two of whose large canvases he owned. “The big painting by Geer finally gave me a sign. Shame that it should have turned out so badly. But perhaps that’s not true after all” (letter to Georges Duthuit, March 1950). “Geer shows great courage. Ideas that are a little cutting, but maybe only in appearance. I have always had a great respect for them. But not enough, I think.” (letter to Mania Péron, August 1951)
    The death of Geer Van Velde in 1977 affected Beckett deeply and coincided with a period of intense nostalgia during which the writer decided to give himself over to “a great clear-out” of his house so as to live between “walls as grey as their owner.” Confiding his state of mind to his friend, the stage designer Jocelyn Herbert, Beckett bore witness to the indefatigable affection he had nurtured for the painter over forty years: “more canvases on display, including the big Geer Van Velde behind the piano.”
    A precious witness to the friendship of these fellow travelers who had, ever since checking the veracity of the game of chess played by Murphy and Mr. Endon for Beckett’s first novel, tackled together the great challenges of modernity: “It’s that, deep down, they don’t care about painting. What they’re interested in is the human condition. We’ll come back to that” (Beckett on the Van Velde brothers in The World and the Trousers).
    $ 10 000
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  41. Le poëme de Saint-François
    Franz LISZT, Anatole de SEGUR
    Le poëme de Saint-François
    Poem of St. Francis
    Librairie Poussielgue et fils|Paris 1866|12 x 19 cm|relié
    Le Poëme de Saint-François [Poem of St. Francis]
    Librairie Poussielgue et Fils | Paris 1866 | 12 x 19 cm | half morocco
    First edition.
    Half red morocco (unsigned, but attributed to Canape), date at foot, original wrap
    pers preserved with a few very minor repairs, top edge gilt.
    Inscribed by Liszt to «Madame la Comtesse de Fleury – respectueux hommage d'un pauvre franciscain de tiers ordre [To the Countess de Fleury – in humble homage from a Poor Franciscan tertiary].»
    A very good copy, nicely bound.
    Provenance: from the library of the poet Armand Godoy.
    This pious inscription on the work of another man combines, despite its apparent Franciscan humility, the three essential components of Liszt's Romantic spirit: mysticism, art, and above all, love.
    A founding figure of the idea of the osmosis between man and nature, St Francis of Assisi very quickly won over the Romantics, in search of medieval heroes. Chateaubriand devoted some very fine passages to him in the second volume of Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, and he was an inspiration to Hugo, Lamartine, Vigny as well as Liszt, who joined the Franciscan order in 1865 and composed several works dedicated to him, among them the Cantico del sol di Francesco d'Assisi and Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds (both executed at the same time as the work by Anatole de Ségur that Liszt presented to the Countess de Fleury).
    The Poem of St Francis is, in fact, one of the first works dedicated to the «Poverello», who experienced several centuries of neglect before this Romantic renaissance. Liszt, a keen observer of studies of, and artistic representations of, St Francis, had in his library several important works on the Franciscans, including a copy of this life of the Saint inscribed by Ségur to «the abbé Liszt», in «an homage of respectful admiration» (the work was catalogued as part of his library after Liszt's death).
    Uniting spirituality and poetry, this verse hagiography could hardly fail to win over the composer of the Poetic and Religious Harmonies, freshly ordained a Franciscan tertiary.
    Nonetheless this pious ex-dono from a «poor Franciscan» to a devout Countess herself withdrawn from the world, relit a more ancient and more sulphurous fire which had consumed the youth of the author of the Reminiscences of Robert the Devil and the Mephisto Waltzes.
    The «Countess of Fleury» was in reality the «Duchess» de Fleury but Liszt had known her above all with the former title since, when he met her in 1831 in a Parisian salon, Adèle-Joséphine Quarré de Chelers was the Countess Adèle de La Prunarède.
    After a significant mystical crisis, Liszt – then aged 19 – felt his first romantic stirrings. If «we know little about these various sentimental adventures...one name always stands out from this succession of crushes: that of the Countess Adèle de la Prunarède» (cf. Serge Gut, in Correspondance Franz Liszt et Marie d'Agoult).
    The young composer's first real affair was to be with this «intoxicating woman», fifteen years his senior. «Barely six months after coming out of his contemplative lethargy, Liszt plunged himself into the delights and torments of a sensual and feverish passion» (op. cit.) which was to be interrupted only in 1832, when he met Marie d'Agoult.
    Though Liszt had spent several months with Adèle in the Château de Marlioz in Haute-Savoie, this affair remains not very well known to biographers and historians.
    Nonetheless, the importance of this lover is proved by the lively jealousy she inspired in Marie d'Agoult throughout her relationship with Liszt, as her correspondence and diaries show.
    From the first years on, the letters of Liszt and Marie d'Agoult are pervaded by this menacing ghost.
    The fears of Marie d'Agoult, who was tormented by Liszt's adventurous past, were particularly focused on Adèle (the only one to be referred to exclusively by her Christian name). Despite the care she took not to let her emotions show, Liszt's replies are explicit: «Miss Boscary is marrying Miramon, and I am pleased. Adèle in Geneva is devastated. That, too, is good.»
    Marie d'Agoult's reply is entirely mutilated at the passage concerning Adèle: «Talk to me of Adèle. What more can she suffer still? You know that I love her» (the rest has been cut out, as is common with very sensitive passages).
    In the couple's letters between 1833 and 1834, references to this Adèle are as frequent as they are enigmatic: «You have it in your power to do me a great service; my poor and miserable fate is in your hands...it is neither you nor me I refer to, but Adèle» (Liszt to Marie, August 1833).
    In May 1834, responding to an explicit request: «tell me what you wrote to Adèle,» Liszt confirms to Marie d'Agoult her fears of the affection he bears for Adèle:
    «I thought it better not to reply to her for the moment...The need to see her, to speak to her from the depths of my soul torments me sometimes...but rarely.»
    Not much later, following a new outbreak of jealousy on the part of Marie, Liszt was forced to go back over his painful break with Adèle:
    «It was a time of struggle, anguish, and lonely torment – a time where I broke, destroyed, violently annihilated the love of Adèle. It was then that I wrote: I am and I would rather not be – I must suffer, and suffer alone...»
    In letter after letter, he confides in Marie his guilty remorse: «I was nothing but a coward and a miserable poltroon [Liszt underlined these two words] for Adèle.» Then he once more turns cruel: «What have I to say to her?...and what I have to say to her, would she understand?», or sarcastic: «Wolf told me a scandalous little story about Mr Ginestous and Adèle. The punchline was a few strokes with a riding crop, humbly borne by Adèle...That made me smile.» Some of his letters even seem cynical, like in the following passage about another conquest thrown aside: «I heard her cry from her very innards: ‘Love me, save me!', like Adèle, before.»
    Adèle seems to disappear for a time from the lives of Liszt and d'Agoult, but when they settled in Italy in 1837, her presence in that country immediately began to worry Marie (she had already noted in her diary «Adèle's pilgrimage to Rome» the year before).
    «Would Mme Pictet happen to know in which Italian town...Mme de la Prunarède is currently to be found...?» (letter to A. Pictet, October 1837).
    From then on and until their separation in 1839, the proximity of this rival remained a constant threat to the couple:
    «Mme de la Prunarède is here with the Cadores. She is separated from her husband and divides herself between her lovers and her confessors» (letter to Louis de Ronchaux, Rome, 18 March 1839).
    During their mutual stay in Italy, Marie avoided meeting Adèle, but her correspondence bears witness to the fact that Liszt, much to her annoyance, saw her all the more assiduously. Hence this bitter missive to Adèle from July 1839:
    «Like you said yesterday to Franz, you are held in very high regard in the world. The same world that holds you in high regard holds me in no regard at all, and the worst of it is that I care not a whit...The regard you have acquired is the fruit of a certain prudence that must never be compromised by meeting my insolent sincerity head on. Truthfully! They say also that you convert fishermen, that you walk victorious on the paths of salvation, dragging with you your subjugated souls. Will I, too, give in like the others, to the irresistible eloquence of your pretty blue eyes? But I fear not.»
    Not much later, her diary tells us clearly of the fear that this first love of Liszt's still provokes in Marie:
    «Adèle came...I received her in my room. My heart beat dreadfully. I recover when i see her. She has changed terribly. She is all out of shape, her eyes are shady, her lines grown dumpy, her color muddy. She has an air of excessive falseness...Franz thinks she's fat» (Diary, July 1839, in Marie D'Agoult, Correspondance générale, Volume II).
    But what frightened Marie even more than the beauty of Adèle was her mysticism. In fact, Liszt's former mistress was on the same path as the lover of her youth; and having known, like him, «rather a tumultuous emotional life, she spent her final years in profound piety» (op. cit., p. 562)
    Does Liszt's inscription therefore reveal a profound complicity with this woman whose sensuality bore her away from religion and with whom he reconnected once more after thirty-five years in their shared faith?
    In 1877, Liszt summed up his life thus: «Having denied myself painfully for
    thirty years, from 1830 to 1860, of the sacrament of penitence, it was with absolute conviction that, coming back to it again, I could tell my confessor...'My life was nothing but a long distraction from the feeling of love.' I should add: above all by music – the art both divine and satanic at the same time which, more than any other, induces in us temptation.»
    A superb and very rare inscription combining the three great passions that consumed the heart of the Romantic composer – music, spirituality, and love.
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  42. La voix humaine - pièce en un acte
    Jean COCTEAU
    La voix humaine - pièce en un acte
    Stock|Paris 1930|12 x 19 cm|relié
    First edition, one of 525 numbered copies on "pur-fil" paper Marais, ours one of 25 out trade.
    Binding half morocco ...
    Bel autograph signed by Jean Cocteau: "To my dear Marc Trébor singing as Baudelaire wrote and still moves me very cut Although the disc is better than the book Ask for Columbia.." Enriched by a beautiful drawing in black ink repésentant a young man in profile and slightly enhanced in pastel blue.
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  44. L'exilée
    Pierre LOTI
    L'exilée
    Calmann Lévy|Paris 1893|12 x 18.50 cm|relié

    First edition in part.
    Half brown morocco over marbled paper boards by Kra, spine in four compartments with black fillets (lightly sunned), date in gilt at foot of spine, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine (faded) preserved, top edge gilt
    Handsome autograph inscription from Pierre Loti : "Au maître Saint-Saëns, fidèlement [to master Saint-Saëns, faithfully]." This copy is enriched with a one-page autograph letter dated and signed by Camille Saint-Saëns, in which he presents his condolences to his correspondent
    Spotting to final blank endpaper
    A good copy in a nice binding.

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  47. Litanies de la rose
    André DOMIN, Remy de GOURMONT
    Litanies de la rose
    Litanies of the Rose
    René Kieffer|Paris 1919|12.50 x 16.50 cm|relié

    GOURMONT Remy de & DOMIN André. Litanies de la rose [Litanies of the Rose]
    René Kieffer, Paris 1919, 12,5 x 16,5 cm, half morocco
    Illustrated with 59 original compositions colored in stencil by André Domin, one of 500 numbered copies on vélin paper, the only printing along with 60 on Japon paper.
    Half black morocco over marbled paper boards with geometric motifs and moiré effect by Goy & Vilaine, spine in six compartments, gilt date at foot, pastedowns and endpapers of deep orange paper, top edge gilt, covers preserved.
    A fine Art Deco piece by René Kieffer
    A very good copy in an elegant binding.
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  50. A rebours
    Joris-Karl HUYSMANS
    A rebours
    G. Charpentier & Cie|Paris 1884|11.50 x 18 cm|relié sous étui
    First edition on ordinary paper
    A superb and sober black morocco binding by Semet & Plumelle, spine in six compartments, gilt date at foot of spine, gilt roulettes to head- and tail-pieces, marbled pastedowns and endpapers, gilt dentelle frame inside covers, gilt fillet to edges of boards, all edges gilt, covers preserved, slipcase edged with morocco and with marbled paper boards, lined with brown felt
    Ink ex dono to head of upper preserved cover
    A fine copy elegantly bound by Semet & Plumelle.
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  69. Le grand Meaulnes
    ALAIN-FOURNIER
    Le grand Meaulnes
    Emile-Paul frères|Paris 1913|12 x 19 cm|broché
    First edition with the characteristics of the first impression, one of 300 copies of the first impression on alfa satiné paper numbered in the press and reserved for the author
    Rare autograph inscription from the author to the political journalist and writer Paul Methiex, who was secretary to Aurélien Scholl and notably worked on Action Française
    A few discreet repairs to spine, scattered wormholes
    A precious copy reserved for the author in its original condition, with an autograph inscription.
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  71. Bonheur
    Paul VERLAINE
    Bonheur
    Léon Vanier|Paris 1891|12 x 19 cm|relié
    First edition, one of 55 numbered copies on Hollande paper as justified and initialed by the publisher, the only large paper copies
    Half grey morocco by J
    Weckesser, spine in six compartments, place and date at foot of spine, marbled pastedowns and endpapers, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt
    This copy enriched with an autograph manuscript of two closely-written pages, being the third poem of the collection: “Après la chose faite, après le coup porté... “, dated April 1887, with numerous variants and a few corrections
    An exceptional large paper copy enriched with an important autograph poem by Paul Verlaine.
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  72. Ruy Blas - Les Burgraves
    Victor HUGO
    Ruy Blas - Les Burgraves
    Delloye|Paris 1838 - 1843|14 x 21.50 cm|2 volumes reliés en 1
    First edition of Ruy Blas, the title with the address at Paris and Leipzig, the first state of the first edition without mention of Les Burgraves.
    Contemporary half light brown calf, spine in five compartments with fillets, gilt specks and blindruled fillets, gilt Greek friezes to head and foot, marbled endpapers and pastedowns. A little spotting.
    Autograph inscription signed by Victor Hugo to Madame Mareuil, who first played the character of Casilda in Ruy Blas. Signature of the actor M. Montdidier (who played the Comte de Camporeal) to first page of text.
    Provenance: from the library of Madame Mareuil.
    A fine and handsome copy in an elegant contemporary binding, with an autograph inscription by Victor Hugo to an actress of his circle.
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  80. Air mexicain
    Rufino TAMAYO, Benjamin PÉRET
    Air mexicain
    Librairie Arcanes|Paris 1952|19.50 x 25 cm|en feuilles sous chemise
    TAMAYO Rufino & PERET Benjamin
    Air mexicain Librairie Arcanes, Paris 1952, 195 x 250 mm
    (7 11/16 x 9 13/16 ”), loose leaves, custom slipcase
    First edition, one of 20 numbered copies on vélin crème de Renage paper, the only printing, with one copy on Hollande
    With 4 color original lithographs by Rufino Tamayo
    This copy, as called for in the justification, is enriched with a suite of the 4 lithographs by Rufino Tamayo at end
    Autograph signatures of Benjamin Peret and Rufino Tamayo on the justification page
    A good and rare copy in a pink slipcase.
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  83. L'oeuvre au noir
    Marguerite YOURCENAR
    L'oeuvre au noir
    Gallimard|Paris 1968|14 x 20.50 cm|broché
    First edition on ordinary paper.
    Handsome autograph inscription signed by Marguerite Yourcenar to Bernard Gheerbrandt, a student of Gaston Bachelard's and founder of the La Hune bookshop and the Club des libraires de France : "à Bernard Gheerbrandt... Ces puissances de l'or, de l'esprit et de la révolte au XVIème siècle...[for Bernard Gheerbrandt…These golden forces from the spirit and the revolt of the 16th century]"
    A good copy complete with illustrated dust jacket (spine sunned), and some press clippings tipped in.
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  85. Un mauvais rêve suivi de Notes et variantes établies par Albert Béguin et de vingt-sept lettres de Georges Bernanos
    Georges BERNANOS
    Un mauvais rêve suivi de Notes et variantes établies par Albert Béguin et de vingt-sept lettres de Georges Bernanos
    Plon|Paris 1950|13 x 20 cm|relié sous étui
    First edition, one of 65 numbered copies on Hollande paper, the tirage de tête after 50 on Japon.
    Superb maroon morocco studded with gilt dots by Madeleine Gras, repair to foot of one joint, covers with design of spiral fillets to centre, red velour endpapers and pastedowns, covers and spine preserved, all edges gilt; slipcase edged in maroon morocco, lined in brown felt, wood-patterned paper boards.
    Slight marginal worming to blank endpapers.
    A very good copy in a handsome binding.
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  90. Ler dla canpane
    Jean DUBUFFET
    Ler dla canpane
    L'art brut|Paris 1948|13.50 x 19 cm|agrafé sous coffret-étui
    DUBUFFET Jean
    Ler dla canpane L'Art Brut, Paris 1948, 135 x 190 mm (5 5/16 x 7 1/2 ”), stapled, custom slipcase
    The rare first edition of 165 copies, the author's calligraphic text throughout, illustrated with 6 original engravings by Jean Dubuffet.
    With an exceptional and very rare inscription from Jean Dubuffet to Hans Bellmer: “à Hans Bellmer amitiés Jean Dubuffet”.
    This copy is housed within a folding box in full ochre calf lined with velvet, reproducing the calligraphy of the upper cover. Covers and spine lightly and marginally sunned as usual, discreet, skillful restoration to margins at head and foot of plates.
    The first work by Jean Dubuffet, being calligraphic phonetically-spelled words stenciled (with linocut illustrations) on wood from crates and the bottom of camembert boxes, then hand-printed by the author on newspaper with 6 engravings in a run of 150 copies, plus 15 copies with 2 further plates, spattered with ink for “le samatere detrase etdanprinte”.
    Those ‘lovers of marks and spots', however, should bear in mind that as far as we know Dubuffet only inscribed “ordinary” copies to his friends, in keeping with the very concept that dominates this founding work of Art Brut.
    In his 1962 preface to Vignettes lorgnettes, which reproduces the engravings from Ler dla Campagne, Dubuffet recalled the origins of his first book: “with their makeshift printing methods, these little works were the exact opposite of the received wisdom of bibliophilia. They were as far as possible from the frigid solemnity of the thick and costly paper of luxury printing, the typography of the great publishers, the full margins and the profusion of endpapers and blank pages; they were printed in very humble circumstances with scant resources, in small format on the cheapest sort of newspaper. It seemed to us (it seems to me still) that even so they were just as attractive as the books usually sold to book collectors.”
    This copy, inscribed to Hans Bellmer, is rare and precious testimony to the major influence of the Surrealists on Dubuffet's thinking and the emergence of Art Brut. Though both art historians and biographers are in agreement in highlighting this link unambiguously, there are in fact few actual traces of the interaction between Dubuffet and the Surrealists. It was nonetheless under the aegis, and with the full collaboration, of André Breton that he founded the Compagnie de l'Art Brut in 1948. “The part laid out for you, as you say, in this Compagnie de l'Art Brut, is yours by absolute right, since your ideas, your temperament, your impulses definitely played a big part in guiding our spirit in all this; and it's absolutely right and proper that a place should be set for you at our table – had you not wanted to take it, it would have stayed empty, like the seat reserved for the angel,” (letter of the 28 May 1948). This relationship, the first we know of between Dubuffet and a Surrealist (not an ex-Surrealist or a Surrealist to be) gave rise to an immediate warmth between the two artists, who developed several projects together (among them an Almanach de l'Art Brut). But from 1951 onwards, their relationship cooled and Breton stopped supporting the Compagnie; the Almanach, although finished, was never actually published. The failure of this project and of the budding friendship between the two artists contributed to the definitive rupture between the two movements and to a growing mutual mistrust. In branding Art Brut the “art of madmen,” and trying thus to maintain the supremacy of Surrealism over this ‘offshoot', Breton undoubtedly betrayed Dubuffet's hopes of a natural affiliation between the two movements.
    Nonetheless, it was a price Dubuffet had to pay to become one of the major artists of the second half of the 20th century, while Surrealism only barely survived the war and the intransigent behavior of its founder.
    The idea of Art Brut as Dubuffet put it from 1948 on could not really locate itself in any theoretical continuum, nor accept any artistic basis:
    “Art works...owe nothing (or as little as possible) to the imitation of the works of art we see in the museums, salons and galleries; rather, they call out to the very depths of human experience and the most spontaneous and personal creativity possible. These are works that their creator has taken entirely...from their own depths,” (Jean Dubuffet, Notice sur la Compagnie de l'Art Brut [September 1948], in Prospectus...volume I, p. 489).
    This (necessary) distancing and the frequently anti-Surrealist positions that served to highlight the lack of historical elements linking the two movements have constrained writers and biographers to broad guesswork, based on the obvious similarities in the movements' artists and ideas. Aside from this short friendship with Breton, the Surrealists barely appear in biographies of Dubuffet. But this friendly inscription to one of the most important Surrealist artists on this earliest of pieces is testimony to Dubuffet's proximity to other members of the movement – a proximity that nonetheless remains a mystery, since Dubuffet deliberately ‘forgot' his links to Surrealism, of which he is, despite everything, one of the most important heirs and successors.
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