Voyage au bout de la nuit

First edition, one of the deluxe copies on alfa, this one an unnumbered hors commerce, only deluxe issue after 10 copies on Arches.

Full blue-gray morocco binding, spine with five raised bands, gilt date at foot, yellow box calf doublure, watered silk free endpapers, original wrappers including spine bound in, all edges gilt, half morocco chemise in panels, wood motif paper boards, slipcase edged in morocco, wood motif paper boards lined with blue felt, outstanding binding signed Hélène Alix.

Unrecorded presentation copy signed and inscribed by Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Belgian pacifist writer Jean Tousseul.

Handsome copy housed in a fine doublure morocco binding by Hélène Alix, in perfect condition despite the foxing-prone Alfa paper.

Jean Tousseul (pen name of Olivier Degée, 1890-1944) is one of the most singular figures in Belgian Francophone literature of the interwar period: he was at once a self-taught writer from the working-class world of the Meuse quarries, a militant journalist, and a committed socialist and pacifist. He served four months in prison in 1918 for his anti-militarist articles, receiving at the time the public support of Romain Rolland. Tousseul contributed to Barbusse’s journal Monde and published his work in Paris with the publisher Rieder. By 1932 he was a recognised author in pacifist and proletarian circles on both sides of the Franco-Belgian border. His major novel on the First World War, which appeared a few months after Céline’s Voyage, springs from the same terrible reckoning:

“La Rafale constitutes an objective testimony, a powerful and meticulous document on the war and the disarray of minds that resulted from it. […] Jean Tousseul condemns recourse to war, but fears that it may long remain attached to the flank of a humanity still in the grip of its elementary instincts.”

This analysis by Désiré Denuit might well have been borrowed from the finest studies of Céline’s masterpiece. In 1937, Jean Tousseul was awarded the Prix Triennal de Littérature belge for Le Masque de Tulle. During the war, he refused collaboration with the occupying forces and died in 1944.

This unrecorded Céline presentation copy to Jean Tousseul —who does not appear in any Céline biography— on one of the most precious issues of the first edition is nonetheless, beyond the promotional and commercial imperatives that motivated the distribution of luxury copies, a unique testament to the humanist conviction that presided over the writing of Voyage au bout de la nuit.

“it all began just like that”

Few were those who immediately recognised the importance of the novel. Céline the writer who was still known as Dr Destouches had offered his manuscript to Gallimard, Bossart, and Figuière, before approaching Denoël et Steele. The latter was the only publisher to show genuine enthusiasm—though without the resources to ensure adequate promotion.

The initial print run was accordingly cautious: 200 press copies printed on 12 October 1932, followed the next day by 20 on Arches and 95 on Alfa paper, according to the printer’s archives. The 3,000 “ordinary” copies of the first edition were printed between 15 October and 3 November. It was only after the award of the Prix Renaudot that more than 100,000 further copies appeared, with the textual variants that are now well documented.

“one can never be sufficiently defiant with words”

Céline sent several press copies to close friends such as Abel Gance, to leading critics including Georges Bernanos, to figures of influence such as André Breton, and to artists he admired, among them the singer Yvette Guilbert. Then, as the book’s success grew, to new acquaintances. He reserved very few deluxe issue copies for his inner circle. These were destined primarily for members of the Prix Goncourt jury and a handful of influential journalists. The great majority of Céline’s presentation copies on deluxe issues at the time of publication thus served an expressly promotional purpose.

Out of 20 copies on Arches and approximately 125 Alfa copies, only 19 presentation copies have been identified to date.

◊ Five inscribed to critics: Florent Fels, editor of L’Art Vivant; Frédéric Lefèvre, author of the famous series of interviews “Une heure avec…” in the Nouvelles littéraires; Jean Ballard, who published extracts from the novel in Cahiers du Sud; René-Louis Doyon, the inimitable “Mandarin”; and Victor Moremans of the Gazette de Liège, one of the most important voices in Belgian literary criticism.

◊ At least four gifted to members of the Prix Goncourt jury: Lucien Descaves, Gaston Chéreau, Jean Ajalbert, and Roland Dorgelès. All jury members appear to have received a copy on Arches or Alfa, though several remain without manuscript inscriptions.

◊ Only four deluxe copies presented to intimates or patrons have been identified: those of René Arnold, Romuald Gallier, Leopold Benenson, and Mrs Georges Chiris. Each of these figures received a deferential inscription, while Céline’s closest friends received only press copies.

◊ Two dedications reflect Céline’s theatrical ambitions for his play L’Église, from which Voyage derives: one to the stage director Georges Pitoëff, the other to Charles Dullin, director of the Théâtre de l’Atelier.

◊ Finally, the intent behind the presentation of an Alfa copy to André Gide (not merely the founder of the N.R.F. but above all one of the most influential writers of that era) is sufficiently transparent.

Only three deluxe copies inscribed in 1932 appear to be neither directly self-interested nor purely deferential. Céline presented an Alfa copy to Jean de Boschère, an artist close to the publisher Denoël who was poised to begin with Céline a new collection of books under the title Loin des foules [Far from the Crowds]. He had been invited to illustrate a frontispiece portrait of Céline for his next book L’Église. This ultimately cancelled project was replaced by a photograph of the famous death-mask L’Inconnue de la Seine as frontispiece.

Two further inscribed Alfa copies are far more striking, in that they serve no affective or commercial purpose whatsoever: the copy presented to Charles Plisnier, and the one presented to Jean Tousseul, hitherto unrecorded.

“i refuse to accept war and all that it entails” 

All Arches copies had been allocated from the moment of printing notably for certain Goncourt jurors, a number of journalists, and the publishers themselves; Céline complained, in fact, of having received none for himself. These two presentation inscriptions on the most precious copies still available at the time are the only ones motivated by ideological conviction: an underlying and ever-present pacifism infused in the Voyage beyond its more outward pessimism and violence.

“I refuse to accept war and all that it entails. I don’t want it or desire it. I won’t resign myself to it. I will not let myself be overcome with self-pity because of it. I simply reject it, absolutely refuse to have anything to do with it and all its soldiers. If they were nine hundred and ninety-five million and I were only one alone, they would still be wrong, Lola, and I right, because I am the only one who knows what I want. I want not to die.”

Plisnier and Tousseul were indeed two great figures of the pacifist struggle, and moreover proletarian, anti-militarist writers marked by the horrors of war.

Charles Plisnier, a central figure in the Belgian pacifist and socialist network, was one of the rare critics to have praised the Voyage immediately upon publication, writing in the journal Le Rouge et le Noir: “M. Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s book is a long cry that has not yet finished shaking men to the core.” The terseness of Céline’s inscription on his copy suggests it was presented before Plisnier’s enthusiastic article appeared. Although Céline’s interest in this writer was also, it should be noted, influenced by his standing as a Belgian critic. Much is the case with Victor Moremans, who received a similar copy.

“truly everything that is really interesting goes on in the dark”

Jean Tousseul, however, was neither a literary critic, nor a public figure, nor a person of influence. Deeply involved in the Walloon press, his nine hundred articles were essentially militant, political, trade-unionist, and pacifist texts. His writings never earned him national honours but four months in prison for “defeatist utterances.” He therefore held no promotional value for Céline. The gift of one of the most precious copies of his book cannot be attributed to any calculation on the part of the author of Voyage.

Absent from every biography of Céline, Tousseul is nonetheless an essential figure for grasping the complexity of the writer. Behind the cynicism and misanthropy of a Bardamu, Céline reveals through this dedication on a precious copy his humble admiration steeped in passive despair for the courageous engagement of another writer who embodied every value expressed in Voyage: anti-militarism, proletarian literature, pacifism lived as a true life philosophy.

The Tousseul copy is thus, as far as can be established, the only luxury copy of Voyage ever presented by Céline out of pure intellectual conviction. Before the noxious ideological aberrations of the most controversial genius in French literature, this laconic hommage de l’auteur is above all a unique testimony to Céline’s humanism in its earliest, most unguarded form.

Provenance: Jean Tousseul; thence Gérard Oberlé, with his pastedown bookplate.