African Poetry and Prose

Vezry rare first edition.

Jesuit library stamp to the half-title, a few minor spots of foxing, slight tears to the head and tail of the spine.

Manuscript of 83 leaves of this French–Bunda dictionary, probably unpublished and unsigned.

This manuscript is certainly the first French–Bunda vocabulary (cf. Gay 3068 and Brunet I-1544).

Half red shagreen binding, spine with four raised bands ruled in black, gilt date at foot, minor rubbing to spine, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, contemporary binding.

First edition of one of the most important revolutionary publications against the African slave trade and the first manifesto of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, founded in February 1788 by Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Étienne Clavière, and Mirabeau, barely nine months after the London Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which served as their model.
 

 

First edition, one of 15 numbered copies on Hollande paper, the leading copies.
This copy with the original frontispiece lithograph by André Masson.
Hors-texte illustrations by André Masson.
A very good and rare copy.

First edition on ordinary paper.

Small pale dampstains on the spine.

Inscribed, signed and dated by Maurice Genevoix to Nicole and Philippe Derez.

First edition, for which there was not printed any grand papier (deluxe) copies.
Publisher's binding in full grey cloth.
Illustrations.

Copy complete of its dust jacket illustrated by Jimmy Ernst, the dust jacket being in a poor state with several tears and corners missing.

Very precious handwritten dedication signed by Harriet Janis to Boris Vian: “To Boris Vian with Paris greetings for Rudi Blesh & myself, Harriet Janis. May 1953.”

First edition, a numbered copy on alfa du Marais paper, this one not included in the justification.
Handsome autograph inscription signed and dated by Aimé Césaire to Raymond Queneau: “Très sympathique hommage de ces bucoliques de sang et de soleil... [a very affectionate homage of these bucolics of blood and sunshine...]”
Covers and spine slightly sunned at edges (but not seriously).

The first edition of this review headed by Pierre Guégen, Eugène Jolas, Joseph Csaky and Frédéric Joliot.
Numerous contributions, including from Le Corbusier, Henry Miller, Raymond Queneau, Eugène Jolas, Léonce Rosenberg, Jacques Audiberti, Jean Hélion, Armand Robin, Paul Guth, Roger Caillois, Joë Bousquet, Jean Follain, Jules Monnerot, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Pierre Klosssowski, Michel Leiris, Aimé Césaire, and others.
Number 20 of Volontés contains a first edition, the entire “Cahier d'un retour au pays natal [Notebook on a Return to my Native Land]” by Aimé Césaire, a foundational and fundamental text of the “Négritude” movement.
Two plates worn, otherwise a good and rare set, lacking the extremely rare final number, the 21st, printed in April 1940, which is missing from most collections.

Press clipping illustrated with a photograph depicting Josephine Baker on stage.

Horizontal central fold, minor tears of no consequence along the right margin of the clipping.

Inscribed and signed by Josephine Baker in black felt-tip pen a few months before her passing: "A Claude Armand ami de Jospéhine Baker 1975".

First edition, very rare (cf. Lorenz XII, 926).

Half caramel calf with corners, spine with four raised bands ruled in black, brown shagreen lettering-piece, restored original wrappers and spine bound in, modern binding.

Loss of paper to the upper right corner of the half-title, some passages underlined in pencil, pp. 399-400 detached with loss of text.

An important work: one of the most comprehensive studies on Toussaint Louverture and the revolution in Saint-Domingue.

This was his final work, published on the occasion of the centenary of the French Revolution. It recounts, in particular, the events following the slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue in August 1791, the abolition of slavery in the colony in August–September 1793, the Convention’s decree of emancipation on 16 Pluviôse Year II (4 February 1794), and the protracted war waged by the French troops—dispatched by Napoleon Bonaparte to the colony in December 1801—against the newly freed slaves, ending with the French defeat in November 1803 and the proclamation of independence.

First edition, no copies printed on deluxe paper.
Illustrated, a pleasant copy

Precious and very fine autograph inscription, dated and signed by Samuel Mbajum: "Paris, 30 June 2014, au ministre Bernard Kouchner, avec ma sympathie pour votre combat humanitaire, en espérant que vous m'aiderez à plaider le plus largement possible la cause de ces oubliés de l'histoire franco-africaine, et aussi des débats sur la commémoration de la Grande Guerre."

Photographic portrait of Erroll Garner, seated at his piano.

A fine copy.

Inscribed and signed by Erroll Garner in blue ink in the upper left margin of the photograph.

Provenance: from the collection of the renowned autograph collector Claude Armand.

First edition of the French translation of England, The United States and the Southern Confederacy, originally published the previous year in London (Sabin 76968).

Copy belonging to the philosopher Charles Renouvier (1815–1903), with a manuscript presentation inscription at the head of the front wrapper.

Spine cracked with small losses and tears. Some light foxing; slight marginal tears to the wrappers.

First edition of these extremely scarce memoirs (cf. Bourquelot V, 374. Tulard 1007. Bertier de Sauvigny 720).

Contemporary bindings in brown half sheep, flat spines decorated with gilt Romantic rolls and black floral tools, red morocco labels for volume numbers and titles, marbled paper-covered boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, some corners worn, marbled edges.

Spine of volume four damaged, restorations to the spines, two lower caps rubbed, occasional foxing.

The Countess Merlin was born Maria de las Mercedes de Santa Cruz y Montalvo (1789–1852) in Havana.

Her memoirs offer valuable anecdotal insight into society life in Cuba, the Peninsular War, and more.

First edition, very rare, of this album illustrated with 12 lithographic plates by Émile Verdier after drawings by the author (1 frontispiece and 11 plates, including one large folding plate depicting Pointe-à-Pitre) (cf. Sabin 8949).

Text and illustrations by Armand Budan.

Contemporary binding in brown quarter cloth with corners, smooth spine with long chocolate shagreen title-piece, boards covered with marbled paper framed by blind fillets, blue endpapers and pastedowns, sprinkled edges, early 20th-century binding.

The plates depict: Palmiste River. Heights of Petit-Bourg; Forest interior. Road to the Soufrière; View of the Soufrière from Versailles; The Yellow Baths near the Soufrière; Basse-Terre. View from the Empress’s Battery; Vauchelet Waterfall. Near Camp-Jacob; The Saut de Constantin. Near Basse-Terre; View of the port and the town of Le Moule; The village of Anse Bertrand. Grande-Terre; The Cow Hole (Anse-Bertrand); General view of the Port and the town of Pointe-à-Pitre taken from Morne-à-Caille.

The painter Armand Budan was born in Guadeloupe in 1827 and died in 1874. He painted the frescoes in the chapel of Saint-Pierre & Saint-Paul in Pointe-à-Pitre, rebuilt after the 1843 earthquake, as well as the decorative paintings of the municipal theatre.

Regarded as one of the first photographers in the Antilles, Budan launched a subscription for the publication of La Guadeloupe pittoresque in November 1862.

A few minor foxing spots, not affecting the overall condition.

A handsome and very rare copy.

Second edition of the French translation, complete with its folding map at the beginning of the volume.

Scattered light foxing, otherwise a well-preserved copy.

Preface by Édouard René Lefebvre de Laboulaye.

Bound in contemporary chocolate-brown half morocco, spine with five raised bands ruled in black, double blind fillets framing the marbled paper boards, comb-marbled endpapers and pastedowns, red top edge, slightly rubbed corners, bookplate affixed to a pastedown.

French translation of The Lost Continent: or, Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa by the Quaker abolitionist Joseph Cooper (1800–1881).

The work is of particular interest for its early recognition that indentured labour, which emerged in the wake of successive abolition movements, often perpetuated the logic and practices of slavery under new forms.

Provenance: from the library of Emmanuel Mancel, with his engraved bookplate by Trouchou pasted on a pastedown.

First edition, illustrated with four plates including a map of the Sudan.

The plates depict human types and a map of Sudan, drawn "according to the Negro slaves in Bahia".

Modern Bradel binding in black half shagreen, smooth spine decorated with two gilt floral tools, gilt date at foot, marbled paper boards, original wrappers preserved (small hole on rear board).

A naturalist and explorer, Francis de Castelnau undertook, between 1843 and 1847, a major expedition across South America, notably visiting Peru and Brazil.

In 1848, he was appointed French consul in Bahia. Upon his arrival, he observed that several African-born slaves could read and write Arabic and Libyco-Berber. Through interviews, some of them spoke to him about the Niams-Niams, or tailed men, said to live in a region referred to here as "Sudan", corresponding to present-day Nigeria. In this work, Castelnau presents the information he gathered on the subject. He describes several tribes from the Sudan region represented among the Bahia slaves: Nagos, Gèges or Dahomeys, Gallinhas, Minas, Borgos or Bargous, Tapas, Angols or Congos, Hausas, Fulanis or Foullatahs. He then recounts the interrogations of Bahia slaves who claimed to have seen or heard of the Niams-Niams, thereby collecting a wealth of ethnographic and geographic information on that part of Africa. The volume ends with a vocabulary section in several Sudanese languages (Hausa, Fulani, Courami, Java).

A handsome and scarce copy.

New edition, partly original as revised, of this study first published in 1858 in the Revue des Deux Mondes (Sabin 40127. Ryckebusch 5041).

Minor chips to the corners of the covers, some occasional foxing.

A member of one of the oldest families in Martinique, Romuald Le Pelletier de Saint-Rémy (1809–1882) served as president of the Central Agency of Colonial Banks; he wrote extensively on West Indian issues and colonial ventures in South America.

Inscribed by the author Romuald Le Pelletier de Saint-Rémy on the front free endpaper.

Very rare first edition of this excellent grammar.

A few occasional spots, otherwise a pleasing copy.

Contemporary-style binding in half forest green morocco-grained shagreen, spine with five raised bands, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, binding signed by Laurenchet.

The third part contains fables, tales, and poems in both Wolof and French.

Abbé David Boilat (Saint-Louis, Senegal, 1814 – Nantouillet, 1901), a missionary in Senegal, left behind a significant body of work: this grammar, the Esquisses sénégalaises, and several unpublished manuscripts.

First edition, one of 120 numbered copies on Lafuma pure wove paper, the only large-paper issue.

Endpapers very slightly and marginally toned, two small tears at foot of spine.

A rare and much sought-after copy in original state.

Photographic postcard depicting Lionel Hampton in the 1960s–70s playing the vibraphone.

A handsome copy.

Signed by Lionel Hampton in blue felt-tip pen on the verso of the photograph.

Provenance: from the collection of the renowned autograph collector Claude Armand.

First edition with no mention of deluxe copies.
Handsome copy complete with its illustrated dust jacket.
Dated and signed autograph inscription from Alain Mabanckou to a photographer named Valérie, enhanced with a self-portrait face drawing.

First edition for which was no grand papier (deluxe) copy.
Pleasant copy of this work which received the Prix Fémina in 1984.
Rare and precious handwritten inscripttion, dated and signed by Tchicaya U Tam'si to Régine Deforges: “Pour Régine Deforges qui a écrit quelques mots que j'aurais voulu mettre en guise de dédicace mais ma mémoire est moins fidèle que moi. à elle toute la poésie de ce 'roman'.” (“For Régine Deforges who wrote some words that I would have liked to include as a dedication but my memory is less faithful than me. To her, all the poetry of this 'novel'.”)

Provenance: from the library of Régine Deforges.