Alcools. Poèmes 1898-1913

First edition, one of the first-issue copies press-numbered, from a total limitation of just 23 deluxe copies on Holland paper.
Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire by Pablo Picasso.
Spine sunned with discreet restorations.

Our copy is preserved in a red half morocco chemise, spine with five raised bands, date lettered at the foot, paper-covered boards, matching paper slipcase edged in red morocco, the whole signed by Boichot.

Rare signed autograph inscription by Guillaume Apollinaire: « à Henri Ghéon dont j'aime la poésie, Guillaume Apollinaire ».
Our copy further contains five manuscript corrections in ink by Apollinaire on pages 71, 77, 92, 110 and 189.
Also included is an autograph satirical quatrain by Apollinaire, composed two years earlier, offering a caustic critique of René Fauchois's mediocre play 'Rivoli', devoted to Napoleon.

Apollinaire presented this copy to Henri Ghéon, literary critic for La Nouvelle Revue Française. The poet took care to correct himself the typographical errors still present in this very first edition, corrections likewise found in other presentation and review copies distributed by the author. Upon receiving his copy, Ghéon devoted an article to Alcools («Alcools, par Guillaume Apollinaire», Nouvelle Revue Française, no. LVI, 1 July 1913), describing the collection as a «démarche aventureuse».

Presentation copies of this work inscribed by Apollinaire are rare and highly sought after.

The small autograph satirical quatrain by Apollinaire, composed two years earlier, offers a caustic critique of René Fauchois's mediocre play 'Rivoli', devoted to Napoleon. Although it makes no claim to the poetic ambition of Alcools, the poem nevertheless shares with that celebrated collection several features that illuminate the genesis of Apollinaire's masterpiece. Published under the pseudonym « Montade » in the Mercure de France of April 1911 with five commas, the manuscript of the poem is written entirely without punctuation, just like the avant-garde poems of Alcools. The very form of this brief poem reveals Apollinaire's curiosity and his constant search for the renewal of poetic expression, as evidenced by the introductory note accompanying its publication in the Mercure:

« Chantecler a été l'occasion pour les poètes français de reprendre un genre délaissé l'épigramme. (...) Le Rivoli de M. Fauchois a aussi inspiré des épigrammes. En voici deux qui sont bien tournés. L'une a été insérée dans l'Intransigeant :

Après Beethoven, Amen ! Après Rivoli, au lit !

La seconde, parce qu'il y a plus de ruelles, court les brasseries :

Le grand Napoléon, au jour de Rivoli,
Avait fait, par ma foi, une belle trouvaille,
Inutile vraiment puisque partout on lit
Qu'à l'Odéon Fauchois a perdu la bataille »

One also notes the poet's own assessment of his work, and his desire for a poetry that wanders freely through the streets and cafés, liberated from the constraints of print, punctuation and formal rigidity, much like the cascading calligraphy of these handwritten verses, composed nine years before Calligrammes.