Voyage au bout de la nuit

First edition with all first printing  features, one of the press copies.

Exceptional presentation copy inscribed by the author to the famous singer Yvette Guilbert, to whom Céline himself sang and offered one of his scandalous compositions, “Katika la putain,” [Katika the Whore] later renamed “À Nœud coulant” [With a Slipknot"] "A madame Yvette Guilbert en témoignage de ma profonde admiration. LFCéline.” 

Beneath Céline's inscription, the actor Fabrice Luchini added: “A Yvette Guilbert in memoriam. FLuchini” ; and on the half-title, actor Jean-François Balmer wrote in turn: “Merci en bon voyage. JFBalmer.”

With pasted-in entry tickets to their respective performances of Voyage au bout de la nuit at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées for Luchini, and at the Théâtre de l’Œuvre for Balmer.

This remarkable presentation copy reveals Céline's consuming passion for the musical attributes of language. Song is omnipresent in Voyage au bout de la nuit from its famous epigraph, the well-known Chanson des Gardes suisses, which Céline would later claim to have written himself. The book's title derives from one of the song's verses. Céline was also a songwriter and even performed two of his own compositions: “Règlement” and, above all, “À Nœud coulant,” a bawdy tune he first presented as a translation of a Finnish folk song. He composed “À Nœud coulant” after the publication of Voyage, during the writing of Mort à Crédit [Death on Credit] between 1934 and 1936, and recorded it in 1955. Arnaud Marzorati noted Céline’s impossibly deep voice and confessed to being “captivated by his deliberate arrythmia. As if the rhythm of life could be chaotic and not tied to the mere beating of the heart; as if he sought to tell his story with a pulse outside of consensus.” (Program, May 16, 2013, “Les Chansons de Céline,” Cité de la musique).

But before recording the song himself, Céline had the audacity to offer this scandalous song to the great Yvette Guilbert, in the 1930s. As Michaël Ferrier notes, Céline “would spend his life seeking the friendship of the stars of his time - some now forgotten (Guy Berry, Max Révol, Alfred Pizella), others more memorable, like Michel Simon or Arletty (to whom he dedicated a piece, Arletty, jeune fille dauphinoise, in 1948), many built their careers on operettas, both staged and filmed. [This passion for song] no doubt traces back to Céline’s childhood: the Passage Choiseul, where his mother kept a lace shop, was home to Offenbach’s Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens and a gramophone dealer.” (Télérama, special issue, June 2011).

Céline’s close friend, the painter Henri Mahé, recounted the memorable evening when Céline unsuccessfully offered “À Nœud Coulant” to the singer. Whether it was on this “musical” occasion that Céline gifted his Voyage to the queen of the Parisian music hall remains unknown:

“Why did the great Yvette Guilbert one day invite him to visit her at home? He leapt at the chance! She introduced him to Cécile Sorel, the unforgettable Célimène. Overjoyed, he promptly sang them his brand-new ‘Katika.’ The compliments were brief and tepid, barely courteous. No! They had something else in mind. A film, a screenplay he was to write based on their ideas: two sisters triumphing on stage… One on official stages across the globe, the other in the world’s music halls.” (Henri Mahé, La Brinquebale avec Céline, p. 72).

This extraordinary copy contains inscriptions by two renowned interpreters of Céline’s prose - actors Fabrice Luchini and Jean-François Balmer, both of whom have brought to life the musicality of the Voyage.