First edition, with no mention of deluxe paper copies.
Precious signed autograph inscription from Octave Mirbeau to his friend Jules Renard.
Blue pencil mark by Jules Renard on the front cover.
Our copy is further enriched with Jules Renard's celebrated ex-libris, designed and engraved by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
First edition of the French translation. No grands papiers (deluxe copies) were printed.
Some loss of plastic film on the spine, two light damp-stains on the upper and lower edges.
Signed and dated by Andy Warhol with an original drawing on three pages: verso of the first cover, endpaper and title page.
First edition, complete with all 12 issues of this luxurious and short-lived review founded and directed by Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, one of the exceedingly rare copies on japon, the only deluxe paper, with four states of the colour engravings.
Bound in half sand-coloured cloth, morocco lettering pieces, marbled paper boards, spines and wrappers preserved for each issue, a fine copy with wide margins.
Our copy indeed contains the four colour states reserved for the deluxe issue, printed on various papers, of each of the 23 photogravures in Arts & Crafts, Symbolist, Renaissance, Art Nouveau, and Classical styles, after Maxwell Armfield, Henri Saulnier Ciolkowski, Léonard Sarluis, Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, Gustave Moreau, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Pollaiolo, Correggio, Piero della Francesca, Rubens, Jose de Ribera, Francisco Goya, Mederhausen Rodo, Cardet, and statues and steles from the museums of Naples and Athens.
The elegant cover design is by George Auriol, master of Art Nouveau typography.
Contributions by Laurent Tailhade, Émile Verhaeren, Renée Vivien, Colette Willy, Joséphin Peladan, Jean Moréas, Henri Barbusse, Arthur Symons, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, J. Antoine-Orliac, Paterne Berrichon, Jules Bois, Jean Bouscatel, Tristan Derème, Léon Deubel, André du Fresnois, Maurice Gaucher, René Ghil, Henri Guilbeaux, J.-C. Holl, Tristan Klingsor, Ernest La Jeunesse, Gabriel de Lautrec, Abel Léger, Legrand-Chabrier, Louis Mandin, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Francis de Miomandre, John-Antoine Nau, Maurice de Noisay, Julien Ochsé, Edmond Pilon, Ernest Raynaud, André Salmon, Valentine de Saint-Point, Robert Scheffer, Tancrède de Visan...
A very handsome and extremely rare copy on japon, of the first French homosexual review.
First edition, one of 25 copies on handmade laid paper, numbered and justified by the publisher, the only deluxe issue.
Bradel binding in half chocolate-brown morocco with corners, smooth spine, gilt date at foot, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, illustrated wrappers by Manuel Orazi and backstrip preserved.
Work illustrated with 136 black and colour drawings, in- and out-of-text, by Georges Bottini.
Bookplate mounted.
Our copy is enriched with a full-page original drawing, signed by Georges Bottini and heightened in black ink, depicting Jacques Beaudarmon wearing a bowler hat and conversing with the « môme ». This drawing appears as a woodcut illustration on page 133.
The drawing is inscribed by Georges Bottini to M. Casanove « en grande sympathie ».
Very rare deluxe copy of Jean Lorrain’s masterpiece.
First edition following the unobtainable mimeographed version produced by the author.
Inevitable minor wear along the edges of the covers and spine, restoration to the upper left corner of the front cover, newspaper clipping laid in. Barnes & Noble price sticker affixed to the front cover.
Commentary by Paul Krassner.
This incendiary pamphlet, issued by the marginal and modest Olympia Press, newly re-established in New York, was printed in only a small number of copies.
Gender discrimination, hate speech and incitement to genocide, a violent and unrepentant attempted murder of one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century, the advocacy of anarchic violence in a grotesque burst of laughter, the elimination or humiliation of half of humankind...
In her misandrist pamphlet, Scum Manifesto (« Society for Cutting Up Men »), Valerie Solanas shows no empathy, grants no room for moderation or reconciliation, and makes no exception in her plan to eradicate men save for « the men who methodically work towards their own elimination [...] [such as] the transvestites who, by their splendid example, encourage other men to demasculinize themselves and thus render themselves relatively harmless ». The first manifesto of radical feminism is not addressed solely to women, but also embraces in its struggle the sexual identities cast aside by the phallocratic society Solanas sought to destroy with unprecedented rage for such a cause.
« Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. »
In 1971, Emmanuèle de Lesseps, taking on a French version, translated this opening as:
« Vivre dans cette société, c'est au mieux y mourir d'ennui. Rien dans cette société ne concerne les femmes. Alors, à toutes celles qui ont un brin de civisme, le sens des responsabilités et celui de la rigolade, il ne reste qu'à renverser le gouvernement, en finir avec l'argent, instaurer l'automation à tous les niveaux et supprimer le sexe masculin. »
At once an insurrectionary political programme, a paranoid delirium and a poetic text, Solanas's manifesto unsettles by refusing to be confined to any single genre—serious, utopian, or satirical. The real question posed by such a work may not be one of morality, but of the author's right to claim excess. Published after her attempted murder of Andy Warhol, Solanas’s manifesto is the literary and literal assertion that men hold no monopoly on violence.
Though presented as an urgent cry of anger, SCUM was in fact the product of two years of thought and writing before Solanas, lacking a publisher, mimeographed it herself in 1967 and sold it on the street (1 for women and 2 for men), meeting no success.
Seeking recognition, Valerie Solanas moved in New York’s underground scene and became close to the pope of counterculture, Andy Warhol, frequenting the Factory. Unable to have her manifesto published—« the best piece of writing in all of history, which will be surpassed only by my next book »—Solanas turned to her first literary work: Up Your Ass, a play she hoped her mentor would produce. Unfortunately, Warhol rejected the piece and lost the only manuscript. In compensation, he offered her roles in two of his films. Dissatisfied with this minor artistic recognition, on 3 June 1968 she fired three shots at Warhol, gravely wounding the artist and achieving instant notoriety. She made no secret that her murderous act, more than a personal vendetta, was above all a political necessity and an artistic means to secure circulation of her work. Questioned on her motives, she offered this laconic reply to the courts and the press: « Read my manifesto, you’ll know who I am. »
Maurice Girodias, the notorious publisher of Olympia Press, repeatedly condemned, notably for issuing Lolita and Naked Lunch, had already noticed Solanas the previous year. Though he had rejected her manifesto, he offered her a contract for future works. After the attack, he decided finally to publish the feminist pamphlet of this atypical criminal who proclaimed women’s omnipotence and the toxicity of the male sex. In a final provocation, Girodias reproduced on the back cover the front page of the New York Post reporting Warhol’s tragic hospitalisation.
Is Solanas’s book the work of a sick woman—abused as a child, prostituted as a student, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, repeatedly confined in asylums, and who would die in poverty and solitude? Or is such an interpretation itself proof of the refusal to allow a woman the extremes of delirium and anarchist utopia that men have long claimed?
In 1968, in the midst of the interminable Vietnam War, violence was no longer the sole prerogative of oppressors, and the rising anger of minorities against endemic discrimination in the United States manifested itself in violent clashes and the rise of radical groups such as the Black Panthers. Yet women remained excluded from these struggles and their rights denied by both sides, as Angela Davis and Ella Baker also denounced.
Unlike them, however, Solanas adhered to no emancipatory struggle and rejected every utopia then in vogue, which, in her view, liberated only men, leaving women at best as rewards:
« Le hippie [...] est follement excité à l'idée d'avoir tout un tas de femmes à sa disposition. [...] L'activité la plus importante de la vie communautaire, celle sur laquelle elle se fonde, c'est le baisage à la chaîne. Ce qui allèche le plus le hippie, dans l'idée de vivre en communauté, c'est tout le con qu'il va y trouver. Du con en libre circulation : le bien collectif par excellence ; il suffit de demander ».
« Laisser tout tomber et vivre en marge n'est plus la solution. Baiser le système, oui. La plupart des femmes vivent déjà en marge, elles n'ont jamais été intégrées. Vivre en marge, c'est laisser le champ libre à ceux qui restent ; c'est exactement ce que veulent les dirigeants ; c'est faire le jeu de l'ennemi ; c'est renforcer le système au lieu de le saper car il mise sur l'inaction, la passivité, l'apathie et le retrait de la masse des femmes ».
A true detonation in activist circles, S.C.U.M. split the emerging feminist movements such as NOW and Women’s Lib and gave birth to radical feminism. Yet Solanas refused all affiliation and even rejected the support of activist lawyer Florynce Kennedy, pleading guilty at her trial even as Warhol refused to press charges against her: « Je ne peux pas porter plainte contre quelqu'un qui agit selon sa nature. C'est dans la nature de Valerie, alors comment pourrais-je lui en vouloir ». (A fascinating testimony to the psychological hold these two opposites exerted on one another).
In a fireworks display of obscenity and mocking extremism, Solanas’s work nonetheless dismantles the arguments of progressive intellectuals while exposing the inescapably patriarchal structure of a falsely modern society. « S.C.U.M. stands against the entire system, against the very idea of laws and government. What S.C.U.M. wants is to demolish the system, not to secure certain rights within it. »
Fifty years on, Solanas’s manifesto retains its biting acuity, and the delirious energy of her prose cannot justify the progressive erasure of her place in social history—mirrored by her own mother’s destruction of all her manuscripts after her death.
Outraged, convinced, or stunned by the cathartic violence of the text, no reader emerges unscathed from the S.C.U.M. experience. This is doubtless due to the literary force of Solanas’s prose—almost Céline-like in its vitriol—but also to the undeniable relevance of her revolt today:
« Celles qui, selon les critères de notre « culture », sont la lie de la terre, les S.C.U.M. ... sont des filles à l'aise, plutôt cérébrales et tout près d'être asexuées. Débarrassées des convenances, de la gentillesse, de la discrétion, de l'opinion publique, de la « morale », du « respect » des trous-du-cul, toujours surchauffées, pétant le feu, sales et abjectes, les S.C.U.M. déferlent... elles ont tout vu - tout le machin, baise et compagnie, suce-bite et suce-con - elles ont été à voile et à vapeur, elles ont fait tous les ports et se sont fait tous les porcs... Il faut avoir pas mal baisé pour devenir anti-baise, et les S.C.U.M. sont passées par tout ça, maintenant elles veulent du nouveau ; elles veulent sortir de la fange, bouger, décoller, sombrer dans les hauteurs. Mais l'heure de S.C.U.M. n'est pas encore arrivée. La société nous confine encore dans ses égouts. Mais si rien ne change et si la Bombe ne tombe pas sur tout ça, notre société crèvera d'elle-même. »
First edition of the French translation with the Arabic text following.
Contemporary half cherry sheep binding with corners, spine without lettering and with five raised bands, marbled paper boards, pink paper endpapers and pastedowns, covers preserved.
The pre-Islamic Arab poet Zuhayr ibn Abî Sulma (530–627) holds a central place in Arabic literature, although his life remains little known. He is the author of one of the seven Mu'allaqât, the canonical anthologies of Arabic poetry.
Rare and attractive copy.
First edition, of which no copies on deluxe paper were issued.
Spine slightly faded as usual.
Precious signed presentation inscription from Eugène Ionesco to Raymond Queneau: "Pour Raymond Queneau, le Satrape, avec mon admiration affectueuse (et que tant je voudrais revoir plus que de temps à autre). Eugène Ionesco."
First edition with 46 illustrations by Harry Furniss.
Publisher's binding over flexible paper boards, discreet and light repairs on the
joints, all edges gilt.
Autograph inscription dated and signed by Lewis Carroll to Mrs Cole.
First edition, one of 30 numbered copies on Lafuma, the only copies on deluxe paper.
Very handsome copy despite a slight shadow on the half-title page.
First edition of the French translation, for which no deluxe copies were issued.
Precious autograph presentation inscription signed by Italo Calvino to his friend, the Argentine photographer José María “Pepe” Fernández.
Our copy is further enriched with an original photograph by Pepe Fernández depicting Italo Calvino leaning on a stack of books.
Signed by the photographer at the foot of the image, with handwritten notes and Pepe Fernández’s stamp on the verso.
Double autograph signature of Pepe Fernández on the front endpaper and the title page as presentation inscriptions, spine faded.
First edition on ordinary paper.
Some scattered foxing.
Bradel binding in full combed paper, smooth spine, navy morocco lettering-piece framed with gilt fillets, elegant pastiche binding signed by Thomas Boichot.
Rare and precious autograph inscription signed by Hector Malot: "A Guy de Maupassant, son dévoué confrère."
First edition on ordinary paper, with no mention of large paper copies.
Occasional light spotting, a small angular lack to half-title.
Elegant pastiche marbled paper Bradel binding by Thomas Boichot, brown morocco title label, covers preserved.
Handsome autograph inscription signed by the author: "A Guy de Maupassant, son ami [For Guy de Maupassant, his friend]."
First edition on ordinary paper.
A small nick on the spine, slightly split at the foot.
Precious signed autograph inscription from Jean Giraudoux to André Gide: "... avec gratitude..."
First edition, one of 100 numbered copies on alfa, the only grands papiers (deluxe copies) after 5 pur-fil paper.
Bound in half green morocco, paste paper boards, marbled paper endpapers, wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, contemporary binding signed Lucie Weill.
Skilful and discreet repair to the top of a joint.
Illustrated with 6 vignettes by André Derain.
Handsome inscription signed by Antonin Artaud: “à Alice & à Carlo Rim que j'aime beaucoup parce que j'aime dans la vie tout ce qui est nature, franc et sans fard et la vie d'Héliogabale aussi est franche et sans fard et dans la ligne de la grande Nature. Antonin Artaud leur ami.” (“To Alice & Carlo Rim whom I love very much because I love in life all that is nature, frank and unvarnished and the life of Elagabalus is also frank and unvarnished and in line with the great Nature. Antonin Artaud their friend.”)
First edition, one of the review copies.
Spine slightly sunned, minor marginal spots on the front cover.
Precious autograph inscription signed by Maurice de Vlaminck to his Montmartre friend Pierre Mac Orlan: "... son vieux copain..."
First edition on ordinary paper.
A vertical shadow along the entire length of the lower cover, otherwise a very good copy.
Illustrated wrapper with a drawing by Claude Cahun.
Precious signed autograph inscription from the author Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes to André Breton: "... au grand chanteur / à la sirène / au ........ hélas".
First edition on ordinary paper, despite a false statement of third edition.
Handsome autohgraph inscription from Marcel Proust to René Boylesve.
This copy has a chemise and slipcase (with flaps) of half kaki morocco over marbled paper boards, spine very slighlty faded with bibliophilical gilt inscriptions to the foot, lined with liht green paper.
One very pale angular dampstain Mouillure angulaire très pâleto the first leaves.
Provenance : Heilbronn's library, with his ex libris.
René Boylesve découvre l'œuvre de Marcel Proust en 1913, à l'occasion de la parution du premier volume de la Recherche. D'abord dérouté par l'écriture proustienne, il se montre bientôt dithyrambique : « Notre œuvre, à nous, est ruinée par celle-là. Nous avons travaillé en vain. Proust supprime la littérature des cinquante dernières années. » (cité par GERARD-GAILLY Émile, « Note liminaire », dans BOYLESVE René, PROUST Marcel, Quelques échanges et témoignages, 1931, p. 24). Quant à Proust, l'admiration à l'égard de son aîné évoquée dans notre envoi n'est pas feinte ; ainsi quelques mois avant sa mort louait-il les romans de Boylesve, célébrant non seulement un « art en apparence si simple et qui dit tout » mais aussi « un perfectionnement suprême de technique » (PROUST Marcel, Correspondance, t.XX et XXI, 1991, p. 332 et 778).
Les deux hommes n'étaient pas proches mais correspondirent à partir de 1917. En faisant parvenir à Boylesve un exemplaire de ses Pastiches et mélanges, Proust dut le ravir : quand il n'écrivait pas, Boylesve était bibliophile. Ainsi, à propos d'un autre de ses ouvrages, Proust eut cette délicate attention : « J'avais une hésitation en ce qui concerne votre exemplaire. D'habitude, ceux qui sont tirés pour moi sans marque d'édition, sont un peu mieux que les "originales". Cette fois-ci, le "mieux" ne m'apparaît pas ; et comme je suis incapable de distinguer le "pur fil" du reste, je ne sais pas, des deux sortes d'exemplaires, ce qui est préférable. [...] Vous seriez mille fois gentil de me dire ce que vous voulez. C'est parce que je vous sais bibliophile que vous écris à propos d'un livre de moi, chose de peu d'importance [...]. » (PROUST Marcel, op. cit., t.XXII, p. 156-157)
First edition, one of 12 numbered copies on Hollande, the only deluxe issue.
Complete with the folding map at the end.
Full fawn morocco binding, five raised band spine, date at foot, comb-marbled paper pastedowns framed with a rich gilt roll, comb-marbled endpapers, gilt fillet to headcap, gilt fillet to leading edges, gilt roll to headcaps, original wrappers and spine preserved, all gilt deckled edges, housed in a fawn morocco-edged slipcase. Binding signed by Semet & Plumelle.
Provenance: From the libraries of Dr André Chauveau, Lucius Wilmerding, and RBL, with their bookplates affixed.
A splendid deluxe copy of exceptional rarity.
First edition printed on alfa paper.
A small tear at the foot of one joint discreetly restored, a pleasant copy.
Precious autograph inscription signed by Philippe Soupault to René Crevel in pencil.
First edition, one of 500 numbered copies on Featherweight, the only deluxe issue.
Small loss and foxing to the headcap and upper edge, a crease and minor tears to the front cover, endpapers slightly toned without consequence.
Exceptional signed autograph presentation from Benjamin Fondane: « A Jacques Prévert cordialement. B. Fondane. Paris / 3 / 33. »
First edition on ordinary paper, issued after the destruction of the 1923 printing following a dispute between Tzara and the publisher.
Double autograph inscription, signed and dated by Tristan Tzara, first to Paul Éluard – « à Paul Éluard. Tristan Tzara. Juillet 1929 » – then, after striking through this initial dedication, to René Char in September 1934: « à René Char avec toute l'amitié grande de Tristan Tzara ». This second inscription is further embellished with a small drawing by Tzara, a hand pointing with its index finger to Char’s name.
First edition, one of 100 numbered copies on vellum, ours unnumbered, the only deluxe papers after 15 copies on Japon.
Illustrated with a frontispiece drawing by Salvador Dalí.
Precious signed autograph presentation from Paul Eluard to René Char : « Exemplaire de mon ami René Char. Paul Eluard. »
First collective edition, for which no deluxe paper copies were issued, one of the press service copies.
Preface by Louis Aragon.
Precious autograph inscription signed by Louis Aragon to his friend Charles Dobzynski, whose wedding witness he was, along with Elsa Triolet: "A Dob, Louis."
First edition on ordinary paper.
Paper slightly toned as usual, with a few insignificant spots on the edges.
Amusing and fine signed autograph presentation inscription from René Fallet to his friend Jean-Jacques Vaure; "Pour J.J. Vaure chantre mou d'Argenteuil 13 amicalemebt. René Fallet 16/11/51. Note de l'auteur : celui qui acceptera qu'on lui prête ce livre est un salaud. Pas tant que Vaure, mais presque."
First edition, one of 20 deluxe copies on Holland paper, the only large-paper issue, reimposed in octavo format (the ordinary edition being in duodecimo).
Cf. Vicaire III, 305-306. Carteret I, 222.
Contemporary full stiff ivory vellum, smooth spine, marbled endpapers and pastedowns.
Fine copy.
Bibliographers mention 25 copies, which seems difficult to account for, as the limitation is clearly stated on the verso of the half-title. This procedure was customary for the author (Les Six aventures, 1857, was issued in the same dual printing).
Precious presentation copy inscribed and signed by Maxime Du Camp to the celebrated critic Jules Janin (1804–1874), who later affixed his engraved bookplate to the front endpapers.
First edition of this finely crafted narrative retracing the journey of the author, appointed in December 1854 as First Secretary to the French legation in Persia, under the direction of Prosper Bourée.
Some foxing.
Bound in half bottle-green shagreen, spine with four raised bands decorated with triple gilt compartments, blind-tooled borders on morocco-grained cloth boards, school emblem gilt-stamped at the centre of the upper cover [Lycée de Nevers], marbled endpapers and pastedowns, sprinkled edges, contemporary binding.
The journey was undertaken by sea from Marseille to Bushir, then by caravan to Isfahan and Tehran: Malta, Alexandria, Cairo, Jeddah, Aden, Muscat, Tehran, Isfahan.
First edition.
Half beige cloth Bradel binding, flat spine, date at foot, black shagreen title-piece skillfully restored, marbled paper boards, contemporary binding.
Inscribed by Guy de Maupassant to his friend the writer Catulle Mendès.
A fine copy, attractively bound.
Provenance: from the library of Arthur Christian with his bookplates on the front pastedown.
