Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel

The brief work of Raymond Radiguet compils a poetry collection named Les Joues en Feu, published in 1920, and two novels : Le Diable au corps and Le Bal du comte d'Orgel from which, dying of tiphoid in december 1923, he never saw the publication. Radiguet, who leaves school to begin a carrier as a reporter, assiociates with artistic circles. It's his encounter with Cocteau, in1918, which reveals the birth of this prodigal author. Avant gardist, close to the the Surrealists, Radiguet acquires however a classical style, notably in Le Diable au Corps.

Le Bal du comte d’Orgel is novel often connected with La Princesse de Clèves de Mme de La Fayette because of the deep psychological analysis. The novel mixed the sharp classicism of Radiguet, chastened with the easy going experience of Cocteau who, after the death of the young man, collaborated to the print corrections.
Speaking about Raymond Radiguet, Cocteau wrote in a article intitled This pupil who became my master (Les Nouvelles littéraires, artistiques et scientifiques - 5 juin 1952) : "Il est une plante qui parle, en quelque sorte. Dans Le Diable au corps, cette plante raconte le mystère de ses racines. Dans Le Bal du comte d’Orgel, cette plante donne sa fleur, et son parfum est parole."
http://www.alalettre.com/radiguet-intro.htm - Analyse du Diable au Corps par Clémence Camon

Currently at the Librairie Loliee :
- Le Bal du comte d'Orgel, Paris, 1924, in-12, broché , chemise et étui. One of the ten first copies.

Mac Orlan, the many skills writer

Pierre Dumarchey, alias Mac Orlan, is born in 1882 in Péronne. He has a only brother who will be a legionnaire. Their mother dies when they are still young and Mac Orlan is educated by his mother's family in Orléans. Teenager, he goes to the "Ecole Normale Supérieure" of Le Havre to become a master. But, not interested in teaching, he runs to Montmartre, the famous area of Paris, to take his chance as a painter. Montmartre will remain his harbord between severals trips to London, Belgium, Italy. The cabaret named «Le Lapin Agile» welcomes Mac Orlan and at the same time Max Jacob, Apollinaire, Carco, Dorgelès, Picasso, Vlaminck. In 1910, Mac Orlan tries to sell some comic drawings for the review «Le Rire». Gus Bofa, the editor, prefers the commentaries of the drawings than the drawings in themselves. He spurs Mac Orlan on writing stories which become successfull and allow him to release, en 1912, La Maison du retour écoeurant, his first novel with strange and humorous adventures. That's the beginning of a vivid career.
Mac Orlan writes marvelous stories, loves to portray cosmopolitan and unconventional worlds as in the novel La Bandera (1931). He writes also stories that set in familiar places : Montmartre, Rouen, or Le Havre as in Quai des Brumes, notorious because of the movie adaptation by Marcel Carné. In the last part of his life, Mac Orlan becomes famous with realistic lyrics he composes (La fille de Londres, La chanson de Margaret, Rose des bois, Nelly) and which are interpreted by big names of french song. "Poet of the adventure", creator of the "marvelous and social", radio producer, song writer, member of the French Academy, Goncourt award winner, Mac Orlan never stopped working, till his end, in 1970.
Sources : www.rabac.com - www.terresdecrivains.com

Currently, at the librairie Loliee, you can find original edition ....
- Petit Manuel du parfait aventurier. Paris, La Sirène, 1920, in-8,.
- Malice. Crès et Cie, 1923, in-12.
- La Venus Internationale. Paris, N.R.F, 1923, in-8.
- Les Pirates de l'avenue du Rhum (reportage). Paris, Sagittaire, 1925, in-12.
- Rue Saint-Vincent. Images Italiennes et Françaises. Paris, Editions du Capitole, 1928, in-8.
- Rhénanie. Paris, Emile Paul Frères, 1928, in-8.
- Chroniques de la fin du monde. Paris, Emile-Paul frères, 1940, in-8.

...as well as illustrated books :
- L'Inflation sentimentale. Paris, La Renaissance du livre, 1923, in-4, original watercolors by Chas-Laborde.
- Boutiques de la Foire, Paris, Marcel Seheur, 1926, petit in-4, original lithographies by Lucien Boucher.
- Le Tombeau de Pascin, 1944, in-8, original engravings by Pascin.

La Russie en 1839, a major political piece of Marquis de Custine

Born in the middle of the French Revolution ( March the 18th, 1790), The Marquis Alfonse de Custine had a fitful lifestyle. Originally from a rich and aristocratic family, he was the grandson of General de Custine who led the Army of North in 1793 and was decapitated by the Jacobins.

The Marquis de Custine is early attracted by literature, no doubt under the influence of the writer Chateaubriand who was the lover of is mother, Delphine de Sabran, for twenty years. He travelled a lot, in England, Switzerland, Italy (1811-1822), Spain(1835) and in Russia (1839), taking notes of his impressions and reflections. If his travelling records were succesful, especially La Russie en 1839, his others books, novels and plays, were less regarded.
Refined and acute spirit, sometimes conflincting and disgraceful, the Marquis de Custine, between 1832 and 1857, maintained a patron reputation by inviting the whole artistic Paris : painters, musicians and above all writers. Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Sand, Victor Hugo ou Barbey d'Aurevilly took part in the sumptuous nights at the house of the street de la Rochefoucault and frequented the inner diners of the castle of Saint-Gratien. (Source : http://saintgratien.free.fr/custine.htm).

In La Russie en 1839, several volumes presented as letters sent to parisian friends, the Marquis de Custine describes and analyses Russia by the prism of his own society, the post revolutionary France. The Marquis stayed three months in Russia, during the summer of 1839, went places as Saint-Petersburg or Moscow. He was introduced to the Csar Nicholas but talked also with dissidents as the philosopher Pyotr Chaadaev.
In the foreword, the Marquis de Custine makes a lucid balance, based on his aristocratic, liberal and moralistic point of view :
"Il me semblait qu'en disant la vérité sur la Russie, je ferais une chose neuve et hardie : jusqu'à présent la peur et l'intérêt ont dicté des éloges exagérés ; la haine a fait publier des calomnies : je ne crains ni l'un ni l'autre écueil. J'allais en Russie pour y chercher des arguments contre le gouvernement représentatif, j'en reviens partisan des constitutions."
La Russie en 1839, major book who was republished six times, is as important in the political literature as his equivalent, the essay of Tocqueville Democracy in America.

Currently at Loliee's bookshop :
La Russie en 1839, Paris, d'Amyot, 1843, 4 volumes, in-8, contemporain binding.

Le Paradis Musulman

Important figure of the Art Deco, François-Louis Schmied, born in Switzerland, came to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century and lived there until the middle of the Thirties when he moved to Marocco. He published luxuous illustrated books, of classic literature as Homer's Odyssey, and also orientalist stories. Thus, Le Paradis Musulman by Joseph-Charles Mardrus, doctor born in Cairo who was well-known for his new translation of the Book Of One Thousand And One Nights. Le Paradis Musulman is the third collaboration between the two men after La Création (1928) and Le Livre de la Vérité de la Parole (1929).

Schmied can easily be qualified as a designer because of the importance he give to the layout of the book. He worked, besides, with the designer Jean Dunand. And it's obvious that, with Schmied, the art of illustration becomes decoration : colors are substances, page setting is architecture. The typography is arranged as an harmonious structure, playing with the symmetry. Le Paradis Musulman, is deservedly considered as one his very best works.

Currently at Loliee's Bookshop, you can find, among others, Le Paradis Musulman, 1930, in-4, loose leaves, illustrated cover, with the publisher's folder and case.

La Princesse de Clèves

The Princess of Cleves by Mme de La Fayette (1634-1693) is regarded as the first modern novel of the french literature. The story takes place in the 16th century, at the Court of Henry the Second. Miss de Chartres, sixteen years old, keep her mind in front of tributes her beauty generates. She marries the Prince of Cleves who touched her by his constancy and love. Shortly after, The Princess of Clèves is introduced to the Duke of Nemours who disturbs her quiet lifestyle... The narration, beyond the Court's glitter, puts in first place the psychological dimension of the characters.

The fact that Marie Laurencin, painter of womanhood, illustrated this book is not an accident. Her distinctive style, made of caring and refined colors, with a purpose more settled on undertone than expressiveness, matches perfectly with this self-restrained love story. The ten etchings, among them the frontispiece, resonate harmoniously with the text of Mme de La Fayette.

Currently at Loliee's Bookshop :
La princesse de Clèves, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1947, in-4, loose leaves, chemise and cover from the publisher. Printed at 300 copies on vélin pur fil du Marais.
Copy containing also a complete set of the etchings in colors by Marie Laurencin.

Rues et Visages de New York

Charles Laborde (1886-1941), also knowned as Chas-Laborde, was borned in Buenos-Aires, Argentina, to french parents. He studied in Paris, at the Academie Julian and at the Beaux-Arts. He began, at the age of fifteen, to sell drawings to satirical magazines of Paris.
After War War I in which he was engaged, Charles Labordes travelled in England. He drew the bourgeois life and published his illustrations in Le Rire Rouge et La Baionnette. Chas-Laborde became then a full-time illustrator. He poke fun, with pleasure, of his own world, cartooned snobs et aristocrats between the two world ward. Influenced by the german artist Georg Grosz, to whom his work is often compared, Chas-Laborde illustrated a lot of novels.

He was also commissioned to illustrate a well-knowned serie of books about the streets and faces of famous cities :
- Rues et Visages de Paris, with text by Valery Larbaud
- Rues et Visages de Londres, with text by Pierre Mac Orlan
- Rues et Visages de Berlin, with text by de Jean Giradoux
- Rue et Visages de Moscou, with text by Chas-Laborde himself
- Rue et Visages de New York, with text by Paul Morand

The last folio of the serie, Rues et visages de New York, was published in 1950 after the death of Chas-Laborde. On each page, text et illustration complete each other to criticize social and cultural codes of the New York melting-pot. This book stigmatises the artificial dimension of the city and refers to the gap that seperate the rich from the poor.

Currently at Loliee's Bookshop :

- Rues et Visages de New-York, with text by Paul Morand - etchings by Chas-Laborde, Paris, Lacourière, 1950, in folio, in loose leaves, with illustrated paper covers. One of the 200 copies on velin d'Arches.

- Rues et Visages de Berlin, with text by Jean Giradoux - etchings by Chas-Laborde, Paris, La Roseraie, 1930, in folio, in loose leaves, with illustrated paper covers. One of the 90 copies on velin d'Arches.

Le Voyage d'Urien

Le Voyage d'Urien (1893) by André Gide, and illustrated for the original edition by Maurice Denis, is a transitional and ambiguous work. The young Gide belongs then becomes subjected to the symbolist movement which dominates in this end of the century and from which he tries to peel off. Le Voyage d'Urien signs the slow liberation of his writing, free from ethic pressure and literary codes. During his trek, Urien and twenty of his companions sail from a "pathetic ocean" to a "frozen sea", shore on enchanted islands, die from contagious ill, reach a country full of zombies eskimos... Ellis, Urien's sister, show him the mystic meaning of this adventure which, in the final, leads to nothing. The title is a word play : le Voyage d'Urien, du rien (for nothing). The book ends with this words : "We did not made this trip", "this entire book is a lie". With this work, Gide questions himself on the sense of writing, turns aside from the sacralization of poetry for an aesthetic of irony.

The frienship between André Gide and Maurice Denis is borned from their collaboration on Le Voyage d'Urien and went on till the death of the painter. In 1893, Maurice Denis, as young as Gide, is already the theorist of the Nabis movement. He is certain of his skills and his ideas. He helps Gide to find his positions and move froim Symbolism. More than illustrations, his lithographies are a part of the creation of the novel.

Currently in Loliee's Bookshop, the original edition (tirage à 300 copies, 29 original lithographies by Maurice Denis) in a nice binding, red levant, from Knoderer.

- André Gide - Maurice Denis - Correspondance 1892-1945, Paris, Gallimard, 2006
- Maurice Denis exhibition at the Musée D'Orsay in Paris from october, 31 2006 to january, 21 2007

Cahiers G.L.M

It's in May 1936 that Guy Lévis-Mano (1904-1980) poet, translator and book publisher began the release of notebooks in which collaborated numerous artists bound with the Surrealist pathos. This major revue is a compilation of 9 numbers (from 1936 to 1939) the seventh, dedicated to Dream, was arranged by André Breton. Each number offers original editions of poems from, among others, René Char, Paul Eluard, Henri Michaux but also translations of Frank Kafka or Lewis Carroll. Among plate illustrations, are drawings of Bellmer, Masson, Dali, Chirico and also pictures of Man Ray.

There is a second and late serie (1955), containing 6 numbers.

Currently at the librairie Loliée, the complete and rare collection of the first serie (9 vol. in-12, paper-bound, casing).

- first cahier may 1936 :
Henri Michaux, Gisèle Prassinos, Valentine Penrose, Hans Bellmer, Pierre Robin, Carrouges.
- second cahier july 1936 :
Pierre Jean Jouve, Tristan Tzara, Deux Enfants, Franz Kafka, Guy Lévis-Mano, René-Jean Clos, A. Rolland de Renéville, André Masson, René Laporte, Jean Le Louet, Pierre Courthion.
- third cahier november 1936 :
Paul Eluard, René Char, Jean Scutenaire, Man Ray, Pierre Mabille, Maurice Blanchard, Herman Grégoire, Louis Parrot, Federico Garcia-Lorca.
- fourht cahier march 1937 :
Federico Garcia Lorca, Pierre Jean Jouve, David Gascoyne, Fernad Marc, Léon Damas, Henri El Kayem, Henri Michaux, Philippe Soupault, Caresse Crosby, Thérèse Aubray, Roger Lannes, Adrien Copperie, Halina Izdebska, Serge Essenine, René Roux, Jacques Baron, Carrouges, Jean Mario Prassinos.
- fifth cahier april 1937 :
René Crevel, Gisèle Prassinos, Pablo Neruda, Alfredo Gangotena, Kurt Seligmann, Franz Kafka, Lise Deharme, Basile Sainte-Croix, Monny de Boully, Claude Sernet, Jean Le Louet.
- sixth cahier november 1937 :
Franz Kafka, Paul Eluard, Maurice Blanchard, Jacques Prévert, André Ray, Lucien Coutaud, Guy Lévis-Mano, René Char, Achille Chavée, Armel Guerne, Pierre Mabille.
- seventh cahier march 1938 :
Albert Beguin, Paracelse, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Carl-Philipp Moritz, Albrecht Dürer, Jérôme Cardan, Pouchkine, Xavier Forneret, Lucas, André Breton, Marcel Lecomte, Michel Leiris, Ferdinand Alquie, Benjamin Peret, Pierre Mabille, Paul Eluard, Guy Lévis-Mano, Gui Rosey, Maurice Blanchard, Georges Hugnet, Gisèle Prassinos, Georges Mouton, Armel Guerne, Henri Pastoureau, J.M. Belleval, Alexei Remizov.
- eighth cahier october 1938 :
Georges Roux, Georges Schéhadé, Alexei Remizov, Fernand Marc, Leonora Carrington, Jacqueline Allan, René Char, Max Bucaille.
- ninth cahier march 1939 :
Lewis Caroll, Maurice Blanchard, Joe Bousquet, Raymond Roussel, Michel Leiris, Varbanesco.

Paroles peintes, synthesis between icon and poetry

Jean Paulhan and André Pieyre de Mandiargues who were associated with the Surrealists and kept since that time a beautiful friendship, had a great impact on the edition of an extraordinary collection, composed of 5 volumes published between1962 and 1975 : Paroles Peintes. The conception is basic : putting in resonance an engraving and a poem.

A short introduction (Volume I) specifies this collective approach :
"Le couple peintre-poète ou la gravure considérée comme une traduction. La poésie veut donc être universelle. Mais la parole plonge ses racines dans le sol natal. Le peintre, lui, est libre. Ne pourrait-on pas considérer la gravure comme une sorte de traduction Une trasnmutation du poème. Le poème offert au regard, directement intelligible, antérieur à Babel."

In each volumes, famous names lent their support at this specific work. So, we can find, in volumes I, II and III , viewed as the greatests, engravings of Chagall, Zadkine, Ernst, Braque, Giacometti, Alechinsky, Miro as poems of Aragon, Arp, Mandiargues, Paz, Queneau.

The Bookshop currently offers two first editions on pur fil Johannot (200 copies). One in loose leaves with paper covers (volumes I and II), another with a binding by Creuzevault (volumes I, II et III).

Paroles Peintes I. Paris, éditions O. Lazar-Vernet, 1962, in 4°:
Aragon/Chagall - Arp/Magnelli - Birot/Zadkine - Follain/Gilioli - Guillevic/Ubac - Joyeux/Bissières - Laude/Jacobsen - Lescure/Fiorini - Liberati/Ernst - Pieyre de Mandiargues/Bona - Paulhan/Braque - de Solier/Dufour - Tapié/Lepatre - Tardieu/Vieillard.

Paroles Peintes II. Paris, éditions O. Lazar-Vernet, 1965, in 4°:
de Bayser/Vieira da Silva - Boissonnas/Giacometti - Bosquet/Serpan - Cassou/Vessereau - Clancier/Bryen - Daguet/Wogensky - Dotremont/Alechinsky - Grosjean/Deyrolle - Jouffroy/Lam - Magnelli/Arp - Oster/Sugaï - Paz/Zanartu - Queneau/Baj - G. Trakl/Wessel - Ungaretti/Fautrier.

Paroles Peintes III. Paris, éditions O. Lazar-Vernet, 1967, in 4°:
Aldan/Mothewell - Cartier-Bresson/Calder - Deguy/Perez-Roman - Gilbert-lecomte/Sima - Pyere de Mandiargues/Miro - Roche/Hundertwasser - Takemoto/Yoshihara.

Proust's "Placards"

Marcel Proust did not make corrections on first proofs of his manuscripts. He added, writing over margins, notes and entire new paragraphs bound to complete his initial vision. From this mania, sprang placards - montages on broad papers of proof's pages, between which Proust wrote his aftertoughts.

On Proust demand, a "long version" of A l'ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs - edition called deluxe - was printed, duplicating the integrality of the placards issued fromt the manuscript's proofs.

The event is rare enough to be reported, one of of this placards (number 35) will be showed at Drouot for the Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes sale - wednesday, Octover 18, Drouot - room 2.
For more informations, contact Renaud-Giquello.