Pilote de Guerre

Pilote de Guerre [Flight to Arras]
Éditions de la maison française | New York 1942 | 18 x 22,5 cm | boxcalf binding with custom slipcase
First edition, one of 50 numbered copies on texte paper, the tirage de tête after 1 unique hors-commerce copy on handmade vellum paper and 25 lettered hors-commerce on Strathmore paper.
Full burgundy boxcalf binding, smooth spine lettered with palladium, boards with palladium tooled motifs, upper board with coloured inlaid boxcalf, burgundy boxcalf pastedowns, garnet red suede endleaves, original wrappers preserved, no gilt edges like every binding by Jean-Luc Honegger, half burgundy box calf custom case, smooth spine lettered with palladium, light pink cloth boards, garnet red lining, handsome set signed Jean-Luc Honegger.
Signed and inscribed below the justification page by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to Camille Jacques: “Pour mademoiselle Camille Jacques qui se dévoue si généreusement à la cause française. En bien amical souvenir.” (“For mademoiselle Camille Jacques who is so generously devoted to the French cause. In fond memory.”)
Expatriate Camille Jacques taught French in Philadelphia since 1900. Very involved in Franco-American relations, she founded in 1903 the Philadelphia's French Society Group and the “Cercle des trois conferences” which actively contributed to raising American awareness of Europe's tragedy torn apart by the Second World War. She also helped distribute books by the French resistance.
For Saint-Exupéry, Pilote de Guerre published in New York and translated the same year under the title Flight to Arras, was based on the same effort of conviction and solidarity between the people that Jacques was advocating. The author, who did not speak a word of English, arrived in New York in December 1940 with the aim of persuading the American government to join the war. He was to find in Camille Jacques invaluable help, as evidenced by this gift of one of the very few first edition large papers, which he inscribed to her in a particularly patriotic manner.