Moliere's work

The first and collective edition of Moliere is published in 1682, nine year after the writer's death. «With the tactful help of Armande Béjart, Moliere's widow, the actor La Grange took care of the company's subsistence. Armande gave him all the manuscripts unpublished of the plays and, with the collaboration of Vivot, a theater lover and a personal friend of Moliere, he devolved to posterity all the work of the deceased master.» (in En Français dans le texte, n°119).

This edition, in regard of a first collection of Les Oeuvres de Monsieur de Molière published in 1674-1675, contains six original plays : Don Garcie de Navarre, L’Impromptu de Versailles, Dom Juan, Mélicerte, Les Amans magnifiques, La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas.

Considered as a Major piece, this edition, rare in a binding at this time, can usually be found in binding of the 19th century.

Currently, the librairie Loliée can show you :

• MOLIERE - Les Oeuvres. Reveües, corrigées & augmentées. Enrichies de Figures en Taille-douce. Paris, Denys Thierry, Claude Barbin et Pierre Trabouillet, 1682, 8 volumes in-12, binding by Lortic. Early edition of the 30 engravings by J. Sauvé.

Les Chants de Maldoror by Bernard Buffet

Les Chants de Maldoror of Isidore Ducasse a.k.a Comte de Lautréamont, is a singular atypical book which facinated many painters among which Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Hans Bellmer and also Bernard Buffet.

This epic poem in prose tells the journey of Maldoror, a super human and evil archangel who fights against God and commits murderous acts which reveal his sadism and his homosexuality (full text in french here).
The black and powerful illustrations of Bernard Buffet, who sits the character in modern surroundings, are sometimes disturbing, and can't let someone indifferent. It's one of his more accomplished work.

(source : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Chants_de_Maldoror)

Currently, the Librairie Loliée can offer :

• Buffet [Bernard) - Lautreamont (Comte de) - Les Chants de Maldoror. Paris, les Dix, 1952, 2 volumes in-4, folder and case. Edition limited to only 147 copies on velin blanc d'Arches, illustrated with 125 original decorations throughout by Bernard Buffet.

L'Image

As it is written in the frontispiece from the specimen issue, the revue L’Image "created in 1896, is published by the French Corparate Society of Wood Engravers, for the preservation of an art of which devices intend to disappear. ”

Released from december 1896 to december 1897, this revue reflects a pivotal period, the end of the century, marked by an artistic and decorative renewal. Each text or poem is framed by vegetal elements or figurative scenes. Artists as Mucha, Georges de Feure, Pissaro and many others took part in this project. The quaint approach consists in the will to make of a commun revue a work of art, to break the limits between writers, poets, and decorative artists. Each issue offers various illustrations in black and white or in colors, an extraordinary variety of arabesques, frames, lettrines and finials.
L’Image constitutes a new step in the decorative renascence typical of the nineteen century. (source : http://mapage.noos.fr/bellerydesfontaines/l_image.htm)

Currently, the librairie Loliée can offer :

• L'Image. Literary and artistic revue decorated with wood engravings. Paris, Floury, 1896, december 1896 to december 1897, 12 issues plus a specimen issue, bound in one volume in-4, illustrated cover. Each issue is complete of the delivery covers.

Matisse and Les Fleurs du Mal

Classical by conscience and education, modern by intuition, Baudelaire, divided by his own convictions, builds the model of a new and demanding poetry which founds his summet with Les Fleurs du Mal (here the whole text, in french). During the publication, the book is caught in the turmoil of a lawsuit for moral offense and for religious outrage - this last charge eventually dropped. Baudelaire is fined and forced to delete six pieces of the collection. The next edition, in 1861, fills out the first collection with thirty new poems. En 1866, Poulet-Malassis, Baudelaire's editor, who took refuge in Belgium, publishes under the title Les Épaves twenty three poems by Baudelaire of which the six censured pieces. For that, he will be condamned by the tribunal of Lille. The definitive and posthumous edition of 1868 is composed of 151 pieces, but again without the six censored poems. These will be pusblished, with those of Les Épaves, in 1869 at Brussels in a book entitled Complément aux Fleurs du Mal de Charles Baudelaire.

In 1944, Matisse, in regard of his friend Rouault who illustrated Les Fleurs du Mal in 1927 for the editor Vollard, chooses to illustrate the famous collection and makes a selection of 33 poems. The book includes an original etching for the frontispiece, 33 full-page photo-lithographs, 33 wood-engraved lettrines and 38 line-drawn decorations (10 full-page). The drawings, for the major part women faces, comprises also portraits of Baudelaire, Apollinaire and a self-portrait. In the book, published in 1947, the line is aerial and flimsy, representative of the painter's taste for uncluttered work, representative of his genius for simpleness.

(Sources : www.ac-strasbourg.fr/pedago/lettres/Fleurs - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_mal)

Currently, the librairie Loliée can offer you :

• [Matisse] - Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du Mal. Paris, La Bibliothèque Française, 1947, 320 copies issued, signed by the artist.
  
• Baudelaire - les Fleurs du Mal. Paris, Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1860, in-12, bound. Original edition with the first cover.