Sourires Pincés by Jules Renard, the beginning of Poil de Carotte

Sourires Pincés (tight-lipped smiles), published in 1890 by Lemerre, is the first book that allows Jules Renard (1864-1910) to enter the inner circle of writers. The book is a collection of articles first published in the Mercure de France magazine founded in 1889 by Alfred Vallette for which Jules Renard is a major shareholder. The acid prose  of the author is critically acclaimed and open the doors for Jules Renard of  literary circles of his time. He makes friend with Lucien Descaves, Georges Courteline, Alphonse Allais, Edmond Rostand, Tristan Bernard, or Anatole France to whom the copy that we offer for sale is dedicated.

 Sourires Pincés is also ("With all due respect" fourth text of the first part of the collection) the book in which appears for the first time the figure of the young Poil de Carotte. The text concluded with a key phrase used four years later in the novel appeared in 1894: "In his mouth, two fingers and in his nose, only one: Everyone can not be an orphan."

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :

• RENARD  (Jules). Sourires Pincés. Paris, A. Lemerre, 1890, in-12, binding by Maylander. First edition publisehd at the author's expense. Copy with a dedication from Jules Renard to the author Anatole France.  Ex-libris : Dr Lucien Graux.

Pelléas et Mélisandre : Maeterlinck symbolism seen by Carlos Schwabe

Play written by Maurice Maeterlinck and created at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in 1893, Pelléas et Mélisandre becomes an opera in 1902 under the conductor's baton of Claude Debussy. This timeless drama on the theme of virginal love and jealousy, became in a short decade the symbolist story by excellence. It is no surprise that Carlos Schwabe illustrated, in 1924 for Piazza, the story of this legendary couple. If his interpretation is more drawn from the opera  than the play, Maeterlinck, himself, considered that these illustrations were the most complete and more homogeneous.

 and for your enjoyment, the opera opening :

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :

• SCHWABE (Carlos) - MAETERLINCK (Maurice). Pelléas et Mélisandre. Illustrations de Carlos Schwabe. Paris, Piazza, 1924, in-8, full morocco binding by Saulnier, case. Deluxe edition with 30 original illustrations in colors by Carlos Schwabe. Limited to 950 copies. One of the 145 copies on Japan Paper with a suite in black and white of the illustrations.

Poids et Mesures : a fantasy signed Obaldia

Quantitative pain

So many doors to open, close. So many beds to make, to undo. Many stairs to climb, to descend. So many dishes to wash, to dry. So many clothes to whiten, to blacken. So many handshakes to distribute. So many letters to write. So many words to say. So many babies bottles and babies scratches. So many horsies to bed-bye and beddy-byes to ride. So much and so little of something.  So many things and so little about everything. So much many and so little few that there it is enough to discourage the best, enough to pitch a tent in the desert.

But so many, many grains of sand ...

In 1959 is published Poids et Mesures [Weights and Measures],  a fanciful and humorous succession of short texts, written by René de Obaldia and illustrated by the engraver and painter Jean Peschard (1927-2009). The frontispiece of this work of surrealistic lookings, is by Lucien Coutaud (1904-1977) :

 Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :

• OBALDIA (René de). Poids et Mesures. Frontispice de Lucien Coutaud. Illustrations de Jean Peschard. Éditions Les Impénitents, 1959, in-4, en leaves, illustrated publisher's case. Limited to 150 copies, one of the 25 copies on Rives BFK paper with an original and signed engraving  on pearly Japan paper.