New edition.
Spine lightly toned.
Work illustrated with photomontages by Val Telberg.
Inscribed by Anaï Nin to her friend, the writer Christiane Baroche : "Christiane Baroche whose dreams are strong and have roots and bear fruit. Anaïs Nin."
First edition, one of 480 numbered copies on laid paper, only grands papiers (deluxe) copies besides 20 Arches and 100 service de presse (advance) copies on laid paper.
Our copy is complete with the rare vignette etching drawn and engraved by Hans Bellmer printed 'en sanguine' present in only around 200 copies.
Preface by Jean Paulhan.
Spine very lightly faded.
A beautiful copy of this masterpiece of erotic literature.
Autograph letter signed from Georges Bataille to Denise Rollin, 40 lines in black ink, two pages on one leaf.
George Bataille and Denise Rollin's relationship lasted from the autumn of 1939 to the autumn of 1943 and left behind it a short but passionate correspondence. This letter dates from the early days of their connection, but already reveals Bataille's agonies: “Perhaps I was too happy with you for some months, even though suffering did not wait long to interrupt, at least for a time, a happiness that was almost a challenge.”
A passionate lover, Bataille moved from exultation to the deepest doubt and even offered his lover a potential way out of their relationship: “If you can't take it, me, any more, I beg you, don't deceive yourself any longer: tell me it's me, and not some foible I could have avoided and which is easily repairable.” He would rather be sac-
rificed on the altar of their love than have a relationship that was bland and flavorless: “Understand me when I tell you that I don't want everything to get bogged down, that I would really rather suffer than see a sort of shaky mediocrity as a future for you and me.”
Earlier in the letter, he turns to humor to tear him away from his worries: “I hardly dare make you laugh by telling
you that I've lost weight, so that my trousers occasionally fall down, because I've not yet gotten into the habit of tightening my belt to the new notch.” Then, he goes back to pleading: “I write to you like a blind man, because that is what you make me when you talk to me the way you do when you leave or when you phone, you make me fall into a darkness that is almost unbearable.” He then tries to get a grip on himself:
“there are moments I'm ashamed of doubting you and being afraid, or of stupidly losing my head.”
Finally, hemmed in by all his doubts as a lover, Bataille tried to find some respite in talking about the family that he had made up with Denise and her son Jean (alias Bepsy): “If you write me, tell me how Bepsy's doing, which is perhaps the only thing that you can tell me that doesn't touch something painful in me.”
In a 1961 interview, Bataille looked back on this time: "Le Coupable is the first book that gave me a kind of satisfaction, an anxious one at that, that no book had given me and that no book has given me since. It is perhaps the book in which I am the most myself, which resembles me the most... because I wrote it as if in a sort of quick and continuous explosion." The letters addressed by Bataille to Denise during this period contain the seeds of the feelings that explode in Le Coupable as in all of Bataille's work. His writing is an ebb and flow of love and suffering, between ecstasy and disappointment, calm and energy, mixing familiar and formal tones, compliments and reproaches. The letters are often impossible to date with precision as they all proceed from the same movement of ecstatic flagellation.
In 1943, Georges Bataille found a house in Vézelay where the couple settled with Laurence (Georges and Sylvia's daughter), and Denise's son Jean. It was there that Bataille completed his book Le Coupable as well as his love story since barely a month after their arrival, Diane Kotchoubey, a young woman of 23, moved in with them. Before the end of the year, Bataille left Denise Rollin for this new flame.
These previously unknown letters were kept by Bataille's best friend Maurice Blanchot who from 1944 became the new lover Denise Rollin, this woman with a "melancholic and taciturn" beauty who "embodied silence". The crumpled letters (one is even torn into five pieces) are as much the precious trace of Bataille's extraordinary passion as they are a valuable source from a little-known period of his intimate life which was until then only perceived through the eyes of his friends. Above all they are of an exceptional literary quality and reveal several sides to him: the man, the accursed, the worshipper and the profaner... all that, according to Michel Foucault, makes Georges Bataille "one of the most important writers of this century”.
Bronze cast of the Marquis de Sade's skull by the master founder Avangini. One of a unique numbered edition of 99 bearing a reproduction of Sade's signature, this one no.31.
Also included is a certificate of authenticity signed by the Comtesse de Sade, with the family's wax seal.
Provenance: family archives.
First edition, one of 25 numbered copies on Popset Whisky paper, the deluxe issue.
A fine copy.
Pirate edition of 1812, imprint dated 1796. It features the exact pagination of the genuine 1796 edition, as well as the 13 plates and 2 frontispieces by Monnet, Mlle Gérard and Fragonard fils engraved by Baquoy, Duplessi-Bertaux, Dupréel, Godefroy, Langlois, Lemire, Lingée, Masquelier, Patas, Pauquet, Simonet and Trière. The pirate edition is identified by the letters “R. p. D.” in the plates' lower margins, as they have been retouched by Delvaux. In addition, the fillet preceding the date on the title-page is wavy, and the title is presented in seven lines rather than eight.
Bound in full morocco, slight rubbing on the corners, all edges gilt, splendid binding signed by Hardy.
A very fine copy in a magnificent decorated full morocco binding by Hardy.
Autograph letter signed by Paul Verlaine to Anatole Baju, one page in ink on a watermarked leaf. Two small discreet adhesive reinforcements to verso. Published in Correspondance Verlaine, vol. III, CDLIII, p. 26–27.
An important letter by Verlaine, the most Decadent of poets, to the editor-in-chief of the journal Le Décadent, which published many of his poems. The poet announces the forthcoming release of a collection entitled Amis, a provocative allusion to the scandalous sapphic poems he had privately printed in 1867 under the title Amies.
First edition, one of 300 numbered copies signed and justified by Frans de Geetere, reserved for the friends of La Marie-Jeanne, the only copies printed on deluxe paper.
As stated in the limitation, our copy is complete with a manuscript leaf from the work and an original drawing by the author depicting two reclining nude women, signed by him.
A desirable copy, complete with its rare promotional wraparound band: "le livre qu'aucun éditeur n'a osé publier".
First edition clandestinely printed in 175 copies on laid paper, each individually numbered.
Bound in full mint green morocco, spine with five raised bands framed by black fillets, subtle restoration to spine colour, date gilt at foot, endpapers and pastedowns of combed paper, gilt fillet border on pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, all edges gilt, chemise edged in mint green morocco, covers of cat's eye paper, white felt interior, an elegant binding signed by Alix.
A very rare and handsome copy bound by one of the most distinguished binders of the second half of the twentieth century.
12 large paintings on silk: 24 x 34.5 cm, depicting couples embracing. These works seem very close to the style of Yamamoto Schoun.
A folding collection covered with a patterned green silk fabric. The silk paintings are loosely inserted into movable paper frames. Label on the upper cover missing. Cloth is faded, with a few perforations, dampstains in the lower part of the upper cover, and missing edges. First board is split at the head and foot of the joint.
Although the colors are quite varied, they all rest on and derive from a dominant pale green, the color found on the boards. The palette mixes different shades of green with complementary colors in the clothing (red, blue-gray...). Couples are always clothed, with clothing playing a revealing role, an integral part of Japanese eroticism. The decor shows a variety of everyday objects, such as teapots and boxes. In each of the paintings, elements frame and circumscribe the scene: screens, sliding walls, windows, but beyond a perfectly balanced composition: the interiors participate in the unveiling, in a staging intended for the gaze.
Postcard-format reproduction of a photograph by David Hamilton depicting a nude woman seen from behind, gazing at herself in a mirror.
Signed by David Hamilton in black felt-tip pen at the lower right corner of the card.
A handsome copy.
Provenance: from the collection of the noted autograph collector Claude Armand.
First edition printed in 300 numbered copies on pure rag vellum from the marais, ours being one of the 246 containing illustrations in the text.
Work illustrated with 18 unsigned drypoints in the text by Fernand Hertenberger.
Boards uniformly and lightly sunned.
Rare and handsome copy.
First edition, one of 20 copies on Arches paper, most limited deluxe issue (tirage de tête).
Like all copies on Arches, it is wrapped in a double dust jacket in yellow and white, and bears the rare sanguine vignette drawn and engraved by Hans Bellmer.
Preface by Jean Paulhan.
Our copy is housed in a custom clamshell box featuring an original design signed by Julie Nadot.
Beautiful first edition copy of this masterpiece of erotic literature, in its most limited deluxe issue.
An album containing 14 gouaches on silk, including 12 erotic paintings. The first painting on each side of the folding shows a bird and on the other side maple leaves, thus masking on each of the first pages the erotic aspect of the collection. Shunga is the generic Japanese term that designates erotic art, it literally means Spring Image, spring being a euphemism and figure of style expressing sexuality. The term Shunga having been reserved for a long time for prints, collections or albums have often been designated by the appellation Pillow Books, or notes for the pillow, etc. (Utamaro: The Song of the Pillow, 1788).
Japanese accordion album covered with damask silk with flowers and birds in pale gold. Silk band on the first cover serving as a label but mute. Each painting 12.8x16cm is mounted on cardboard. The cardboard folding sections are covered with cream paper speckled with gold. Very fine condition, edges rubbed, with small lacks to fabric.
The paintings respect the canons of Japanese erotic representation: oversized genitals, body hair, women with white skin and men of flesh color. No decorative element comes to distract the eye from the sexual act (only one painting contains a mirror), the bodies being most of the time clothed in rich kimonos. These collections were still in the modern era offered to newlyweds, particularly to women. The whole is of fine workmanship, the 2 introductory paintings, the bird and the maple leaves are particularly successful.
This type of representation was forbidden in Japan and therefore contains no signature, it is however evident that there existed painters whose profession and specialty this was and whom one went to see for private commissions; it is also not forbidden to think that the painter made several on his own initiative and that he offered them for sale, as was done with collections of colored photographs at the end of the 19th century.
Precious and rare ensemble in superb condition.
First edition, one of 50 copies printed anonymously on papier japon.
First edition, one of 50 copies printed anonymously on papier japon.
Illustrated with an erotic frontispiece by Félicien Rops on chine.
Custom chemise and slipcase in half morocco and paper boards signed Boichot, some discreet restorations to the spine and covers, some discreet restorations to the top margin of the frontispiece, not affecting the engraving.
“La Présidente”, honorary nickname given to Apollonie Sabatier (alias Aglaëe Savatier, her real name), was one of the most captivating Salon hostesses of the 19th century. She inspired an ethereal love in Baudelaire who composed his most mystical poems in Les Fleurs du Mal in her honor. The other artists who frequented the apartment on Rue Frochot, during her famous Sunday dinners, had more licentious feelings for this woman of surprising wit and beauty. The sculptor Clésinger portrayed her in his lascivious “woman stung by a snake”; Flaubert wrote sensual letters to her ending with “the very sincere affection of one who, alas, only kisses your hand”; she has long since been recognized as the model for Gustave Courbet's scandalous The Origin of the World.
Gautier sent her this letter in 1850. Sabatier made copies which she never published but privately distributed to her guests:
“In October 1850, Gautier sent her [this] very long letter, farcical and obscene, from Rome, commenting with Rabelaisian exaggeration what himself and his friend Cormenin had learned regarding sexuality during their travels. Gautier knew that his freedom of expression would not offend Madame Sabatier. He had long since accustomed her to it and he prided himself on his “smut” to brighten up the friendly social gatherings of the Rue Frochot.” (Dictionnaire des œuvres érotiques)
Honored indeed by this priapic attention, ‘La Présidente' gave copies to all her guests and the reading of Gautier's “indecent prose” became a popular event at Parisian soirées. However, the letter was ultimately published – luxuriously but confidentially – after the recipient's death in 1890.
After this first edition of 50 copies on papier japon, a second edition on papier vélin followed a few months later with a larger print run and without the Rops frontispiece.
A rare, beautiful and very sought after copy.
