Le musée Grévin

First deluxe edition of this masterpiece of Resistance literature, one of 100 numbered copies on coated paper, the only deluxe copies.
A small fold at the foot of the first cover also affecting the following leaves, minute foxing in the right margin of the first cover.
First published, probably simultaneously, in the northern zone as a leaflet by "Les éditions de Minuit" and in the southern zone, as a handmade brochure (the cover was wallpaper) inaugurating the famous "Bibliothèque française," this long poem would subsequently appear for the first time in volume form in October 1943 before it was decided to finally produce a deluxe edition (sold for 100 francs instead of 10 francs for the ordinary edition) "intended to honor the financial contributions of Resistance bibliophiles."

Le Musée Grévin, considered upon its publication as "Les Châtiments of 1943" (Les étoiles, Dec. 1943, no. 14), would remain with Paul Éluard's Liberté "one of the masterpieces of clandestine literature." In L'Intelligence en guerre published in 1945, Louis Parrot would write about it: « ce poème, traversé d'images éblouissantes, est en même temps qu'une condamnation sans appel des traîtres, une prière, un acte de fois envers leurs malheureuses victimes. Il peint en termes vengeurs, les misérables qui les livrèrent aux bourreaux et évoque le visage de tant de femmes françaises torturées. »
This pivotal poem is indeed one of the very first public evocations, and the first literary one, of the Auschwitz camp: « Aux confins de Pologne, existe une géhenne dont le nom siffle et souffle une affreuse chanson. Ausschwitz ! Ausschwitz ! Ausschwitz ! ô syllabes sanglantes ! Ici l'on vit, ici l'on meurt à petit feu. On appelle cela l'exécution lente. Une part de nos cœurs y périt peu à peu ».

Exceptional copy printed on fine paper, a true act of war whose perilous operation to procure luxury paper in a France where the Nazis controlled printing paper production through the Comité d'organisation des industries, arts et commerces du livre (COIACL) can only be imagined.