Querelle de Brest

First edition. One of 10 copies on vélin de Lana (lettered G, around which Genet has signed in blue ink), signed by Genet at the limitation page, most limited deluxe issue, except for a unique copy. Complete with the loose leaf beginning with “Une brusque lassitude...”. With an autograph letter signed by Jean Genet, on one page with customary fold marks from mailing, published in Edmund White, Jean Genet, pp. 260-261.

Illustrated with 29 erotic lithographs by Jean Cocteau, and an original pencil drawing by Cocteau, as well as a suite of the illustrations presenting some foxing on certain plates.

Loose leaves in the publisher’s wrappers and laced slipcase with the upper board detached, wood slipcase, square spine with slide mechanism on the spine bearing the title and author engraved in red.

An exceptional copy with a suite of the illustrations on Chine paper and an original drawing by Cocteau (also featured in the book on p. 177). Also with an important autograph letter signed, dating from late March 1944, written by Jean Genet to Maurice Toesca, thanks to whom he avoided being sent to a concentration camp.

Maurice Toesca, a senior official at the Prefecture of Police as well as a prolific novelist, biographer, and literary critic, had met Genet in 1944 on the request of Cocteau to secure his release:

“Sir,

Even had Monsieur Jean Cocteau not told me, I would have understood the part you played in my release — for you are poetry’s representative at the Prefecture — and my simple thanks would seem poor recompense for the marvellous gift you have given me. I am deeply sorry not to be able to offer you, of all people, a poem; but at least my heart is full of warm feeling toward you. Do not laugh, Monsieur Toesca, if you hear me speak of friendship — it is still the finest thing I have to give. Please accept mine.

Need I tell you again how desperate I was, sunk in a darkness from which I no longer hoped to emerge — and truly darkness it was, for I had contemplated staking everything on an escape attempt whose most likely outcome was death — the guards were terribly well armed! I tell you this nonetheless so that you may know my joy when the inspector came to announce my release. Monsieur Dubois was splendid; I should be glad if he could learn from you that I hold him in the deepest gratitude. My happiness is such that I could embrace everyone who helped bring this about.

Monsieur Toesca, it is a very thankful old thug, who dares to shake your hand.” (translation our own)

Querelle de Brest was published clandestinely by Paul Morihien, Jean Cocteau’s secretary. Cocteau is responsible for the masterly and sensuous (and unsigned) illustrations. A portion of the five hundred and twenty-four copies printed were seized by the police the following year during a raid on the bookshop run by Morihien just steps from Cocteau’s apartment at the Palais-Royal. After Genet’s wartime tribulations, Cocteau came once more to his aid, this time to spare him a life sentence: convicted for a third time and facing transportation to a penal colony, Genet obtained a Presidential pardon through the intervention of Cocteau and Sartre.

Querelle de Brest was adapted for the screen in 1982 by Rainer W. Fassbinder.

A superb copy of this masterpiece, a true cornerstone of homosexual and queer literary culture, where the criminal underworld mingles with almost metaphysical ecstasy.