La Planète des singes

First trade edition, one of only 50 numbered copies printed on alfa paper, the only deluxe issue.
Rare and very attractive copy in original condition.

"Une paresse cérébrale s’est emparée de nous. Plus de livres ; les romans policiers sont même devenus une fatigue intellectuelle trop grande. Plus de jeux : des réussites, à la rigueur. Même le cinéma enfantin ne nous tente plus. Pendant ce temps, les singes méditent en silence. Leur cerveau se développe dans la réflexion solitaire… et ils parlent."

["A cerebral laziness has taken over us. No more books! Even detective novels have become too much of an intellectual drain. [...]"]

Planet of the Apes, 1963, Pierre Boulle 

This masterpiece by Avignon native Pierre Boulle was an instant hit when it came out in 1963, quickly making its way into multiple translations. It took Hollywood just one year to jump on the "Boulle bandwagon." Producer Arthur P. Jacobs snapped up the film rights in 1964, and four years later the first movie hit theaters, directed by Franklin Schaffner. As Thomas Olivri points out in Littérature de la pop culture, "between 1968 and 2017, this short but seminal text gave rise to two TV series in 1974 and 1975, countless comic books, and no fewer than nine film adaptations: an initial run from 1968 to 1973 starring the iconic Charlton Heston, a Tim Burton take on the story, and a spectacular new trilogy from 2011 to 2017 that explores the Planet of the Apes origin story..." This 2018 text doesn't mention Wes Ball's 2024 adaptation, the latest to date—but it surely won't be the last.

Rare deluxe edition of Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes, his masterwork that straddles science fiction and philosophical tale, brought to the screen nearly ten times since it first appeared in 1963.