Faux pas

First edition, a Service de Presse (advance) copy.
Half red morocco binding, spine with five raised bands, date gilt at foot, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers preserved (a very pale stain on the first cover), top edge gilt, elegant binding signed by P. Goy & C. Vilaine.
Precious and moving autograph inscription signed by Maurice Blanchot to his mother and sister: "Pour sa chère maman et sa vieille Marg avec l'amitié sans Faux Pas de Maurice." ["For his dear mama and his old Marg with friendship without False Steps from Maurice."]
Marguerite Blanchot, renowned organist at Chalon cathedral, remained all her life in the family home, with her mother and aunt. "She would gradually become, for the family, like the memory of origins." Very close to Maurice, she corresponded regularly with the writer who showed her great gratitude for her devotion to their bedridden mother. While Blanchot's intense affection for his mother and sister shows through in his dedications, almost nothing is known of their relationships. In the only biographical essay on Blanchot, Christophe Bident reveals however: "Marguerite Blanchot venerated her brother Maurice. Very proud of him, (...) she attached great importance to his political ideas (...). She read a great deal (...) They telephoned each other, corresponded. At a distance, they shared the same natural authority, the same concern for discretion." Blanchot indeed sent her numerous works from his library, maintaining with her a continuous intellectual bond. As for Blanchot's passion for his mother, it is in the course of his work that we discover the most beautiful testimonies: "Perhaps the power of the maternal figure borrows its brilliance from the very power of fascination, and one could say that if the Mother exercises this fascinating attraction, it is because appearing when the child lives entirely under the gaze of fascination, she concentrates in herself all the powers of enchantment." Cultivating absolute discretion, Blanchot pushed the art of self-effacement even into his manuscript dedications, generally succinct and written almost systematically on cards attached to the rare works he gave to his close friends. In contrast, in these precious inscriptions to his mother and sister, Blanchot offers himself in all his fragility and reveals an intimacy hitherto unknown.
Handsome copy with full margins perfectly established.