Rarest Books (Untraceables)

A collection of four extremely rare first editions:
- Thuileur des trente-trois degrés de l'écossisme (1813), “a rare and sought-after work and one of the best thuileurs in existence...” (Caillet, I, 2910). With a frontispiece and 14 plates (one folding) as well as a large folding table at end;
- Récapitulation de toute la maçonnerie ou Description et explication de l'hiéroglyphe universel du maître des maîtres (1812) with two plate;
- l'Explication de la croix philosophique (1806) with a folding plate showing the eponymous cross;
- l'Explication de la pierre cubique (1806) with a folding plate describing the stone.
This copy is further enriched with a small insert...

Edition printed in 50 numbered and justified copies on Arches paper by Bonaventure Fieullien, ours printed for André Bocquetin with his bookplate pasted on a guard.
Pleasant copy.
This calligraphed album, engraved and printed on his hand presses by Bonaventure Fieullien (Franciscan monk who studied at the Academy of Brussels under the direction of the Belgian painter Oswald Poreau and who worked in sculpture, stained glass and painting, but who was especially recognized for his remarkable and spectacular illustrated books with amazing idiosyncratic lettering) was illuminated by Madeleine Smets-Lefrancq.
Signatures of Bonaventure Fieullien...

Autograph manuscript of 12 pages on squared sheets, written in blue ink, with numerous passages underlined.
A previously unpublished set of reflections by Jean-Paul Sartre on social structure and bourgeois ideology, probably written in 1952 as part of a projected screenplay on the revolutionary period. This series of interior dialogues on the nature of individual and collective power constitutes an early draft of the ideas later developed in his 1960 masterpiece, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Through the example of the French Revolution and the Terror, Sartre questions the role of the citizen and of property, drawing on the writings of Kant, Marx...

Collection of documents formed of 33 original contemporary silver halide print photographs, a reproduction of a press clipping from La Voix du Nord and three mimeographed technical plans, united in a black binder with a label with the inscription «Production Report «press» – press-forming of the ½ spheres of Ct Cousteau's diving saucer – February 1964.» Handwritten title page.
Signed, handwritten presentation: «Avec les amitiés du reporter photographe Wallemme Raoul» «With love from the photojournalist Wallemme Raoul.»
Very beautiful and unique collection, testifying to the genius of the making of the Deep Star 4000, a diving saucer invented by...

First edition. Title page in red and black. Title vignette with the arms of Dauphiné flanked by 2 angels. Manuscript inscriptions from the 16th century in the margins of the title page, the one at the bottom of the page recalling the history of Humbert bequeathing Dauphiné to the eldest son of the King of France. On the last leaf, manuscript ex libris, as well as on the verso of the first blank leaf: Je suis l'abbé de Pinet et de Cours ["I am the abbot of Pinet and Cours"].

Title inside the volume in the upper margin: Statuta Delphinatus. Gothic printing in 2 columns of 45 lines. Brunet, J.-C. Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres (5th ed.) II, 1812. As Brunet specifies...

First edition, of which only 500 copies were issued. With an etched frontispiece portrait of Théophile Gautier by Émile Thérond.

With a substantial prefatory letter by Victor Hugo.

Full red morocco binding, gilt date at the foot of spine, marbled endpapers, Baudelairian ex-libris from Renée Cortot’s collection on the first endpaper, wrappers preserved, top edge gilt. Pale foxing affecting the first and last leaves, beautiful copy perfectly set.

First edition, one of 70 numbered copies on Lafuma de Voiron and reimposed in quarto Tellière format, only deluxe copies ("tirage de tête").
Spine and cover slightly and marginally sunned.
Nice copy.

Original poster by Karen Horowitz numbered 145/200, dated 1974 and signed in pencil, showing a photograph with a superimposed quote from Lawrence Durrell's Justine: “The world is like a cucumber – today it's in your hand, tomorrow up your ass”.
A few tiny wormholes.

Manuscript inscription in felt tip pen by Lawrence Durrell to the left of the quote: “Buttons dear Attention! Larry Durrell. 1978”

This poster was given to a young lover of the author's who, in both Sommières and Paris, livened up his lonely days at the end of the 60s and in the 70s. Janine Brun, also known as “Buttons” in the author's letters and postcards was described thus...