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Published by Stock in 1930, *Opium. Journal d'une désintoxication* is one of Jean Cocteau's most personal and visually distinctive books. It grew out of notes and drawings made between December 1928 and April 1929 while he underwent withdrawal treatment at a clinic in Saint-Cloud. Text and image are inseparable: Cocteau records physical suffering, hallucination, lucidity and doubt with the same nervous immediacy found in his drawing. The result is not a conventional diary but a kaleidoscopic sequence of observations on opium, art, literature, sexuality, illness and creativity. The first edition is extensively illustrated with facsimile reproductions of his own drawings and collages. This copy, no. 116, is one of only 120 copies printed on vélin de Rives, the third paper of the original issue. The book also bears the ex-libris of the Antwerp neurologist and distinguished bibliophile Ludo Van Bogaert, giving it notable Belgian provenance.

In *Opium. Journal d’une désintoxication*, Jean Cocteau transforms the experience of withdrawal into an unusually hybrid book in which diary, essay, aphorism and drawing continually interact. The 1930 first edition is among his most personal and visually distinctive publications. Cocteau records not only the physical and psychological effects of opium and abstinence but uses them as a point of departure for reflections on art, literature, friendship, death and creation. His numerous drawings are not incidental decoration but run alongside the text as a second form of autobiographical notation. Three separate plates on vélin reproduce his collages « La douleur exquise. », « Scène d’Orphée. » and « Je quitte Saint-Cloud. ». Number 12, this copy belongs to the exceptionally small group of 28 Japon impérial copies offered for sale. Its still-unopened state and notably fresh contents make this large-paper copy especially desirable from a bibliophilic perspective.

*N.E.O.N.* ranks among the most distinctive Surrealist journals of the immediate postwar period and was conceived as a four-page broadsheet rather than a conventionally bound review. Its third issue appeared in Paris in May 1948 under the editorial responsibility of Sarane Alexandrian, Jindřich Heisler, Véra Hérold, Stanislas Rodanski and Claude Tarnaud. The title itself unfolds as a poetic programme: N’être rien, Être tout, Ouvrir l’être, and, in reverse, Néant, Oubli, Être. Poems, polemics, book notices and images are interwoven in a restless, collage-like layout. Heisler’s graphic conception makes text and page inseparable, while the broad circle of contributors connects the young postwar generation with figures such as Breton, Péret, Brauner, Toyen and Gracq. This copy belongs to the rare issue on blue paper, whose fading reveals the material history of the sheet. For the bibliophile, it is both a record of Surrealism’s renewal after 1945 and an exceptionally fragile graphic object.

*N.E.O.N.* ranks among the rarest and most graphically distinctive Surrealist reviews produced in post-war Paris. Its title forms a poetic acronym: N’être rien, Être tout, Ouvrir l’être, Néant, Oubli, Être. The editorial group comprised Sarane Alexandrian, Jindřich Heisler, Véra Hérold, Stanislas Rodanski and Claude Tarnaud. The Czech Surrealist Heisler was chiefly responsible for the publication’s striking visual identity. Text, photography, drawings, facsimile handwriting and typography merge into a collage-like whole. The large newspaper format makes the unfolding of each issue an essential part of the reading experience. This group contains four of the only five issues published and therefore represents an exceptionally substantial run of the short-lived review.

This lot brings together four photographic publications from the second half of the 1970s, centred on Henri Cartier-Bresson and Édouard Boubat. It includes a Scottish Arts Council catalogue around Cartier-Bresson’s archive of 390 photographs from the Victoria and Albert Museum, a French publication by Delpire, Le Nouvel Observateur and the Fondation Nationale de la Photographie, L’Ombre de l’autre by Édouard Boubat and Dominique Preschez with postcard, and a Japanese Pacific Press Service publication on Cartier-Bresson. The coherence of the lot lies not only in photography, but above all in the inscriptions to Jean-Pierre Seguin. These modest catalogues therefore acquire clear institutional weight.

*Madrigaux* gathers Stéphane Mallarmé’s refined occasional verses in an edition in which poetry and colour enter into an unusually graceful dialogue. This posthumous first edition appeared in 1920 from Éditions de La Sirène, at a moment when Mallarmé’s poetry was exerting a decisive influence on modern literature and art. Raoul Dufy accompanied the poems with colour illustrations that do not merely explain the texts but create a parallel atmosphere of elegance, irony and playfulness. His lucid line and decorative use of colour respond particularly well to Mallarmé’s concise and suggestive verse. The book thus brings the poet’s late nineteenth-century Symbolism into dialogue with the visual language of French modernism. This copy, number 324, is one of 1,000 printed on vélin Lafuma de Voiron. Its restrained Jansenist blue shagreen binding provides an elegant counterpoint to the colour of the illustrations within.

*Martinique charmeuse de serpents* is Breton’s compelling recollection of Martinique, rooted in his enforced passage through the island in 1941 while fleeing to the United States. The book combines travel notes, poetic observation and political awareness with André Masson’s nervous, organic visual language. The encounter with Aimé and Suzanne Césaire opens the text to a Caribbean and transatlantic dimension of Surrealism. Masson’s red lithograph and nine further visual contributions make the edition a closely integrated collaboration between writer and artist. This copy belongs to the limited Marais Crève-cœur group, the second paper and one of only two paper groups to include the original print. Its fresh wrappers, generous uncut margins and preserved chemise and slipcase heighten its bibliophilic appeal.

Lettre à Jacques Maritain and Réponse à Jean Cocteau together form a remarkable 1926 diptych in which literature, conversion, friendship and Catholic intellectual culture meet. Cocteau addresses Jacques Maritain from a moment of spiritual and moral reorientation, while Maritain replies from his position as philosopher and Catholic thinker. The two pamphlets are modest in format but considerable in meaning: they document one of the most sensitive points of contact between the French avant-garde and religious thought in the interwar period. This ensemble is especially notable for the double inscription to Jacques Guenne, writer, critic and man of letters. In the Lettre, Cocteau writes: “à Jacques Guenne / son ami / Jean”, while Maritain notes in the Réponse: “à Jacques Guenne / sincère hommage / J. Maritain”. The condition is fragile, with faded and damaged wrappers, losses, tears and foxing, but that fragility precisely matches the ephemeral pamphlet form. As service de presse copies with two autograph inscriptions to the same literary recipient, they form a highly charged association set.

Published posthumously by Albin Michel in 1987, *Lettres à Jean Marais* brings together Jean Cocteau’s letters to one of the central figures in his personal and artistic life. For roughly a quarter of a century Jean Marais was not only Cocteau’s intimate friend but also his actor, muse and one of his most important creative collaborators. The correspondence therefore provides unusually direct access to the everyday life behind Cocteau’s theatre, cinema and literature. Marais himself prepared the volume and contributed its preface, allowing the original recipient of the letters to contextualize their publication. This copy belongs to the exceptionally small hors-commerce group of the deluxe issue on Holland paper: only ten HC copies were provided in addition to eighty numbered copies. It also bears a large and warm presentation inscription from Jean Marais to Diane: ‘Pour Diane, avec un grand merci et beaucoup d’amitié, Jean Marais.’ The combination of deluxe paper, HC status and a personal inscription by the man to whom Cocteau’s letters were originally addressed gives the copy particularly strong association value.

CENDRARS (Blaise). L’Eubage. Aux antipodes de l’unité. Paris, Au Sans Pareil, 1926. In-8, broché sous couverture imprimée rempliée, conservé sous son papier cristal d’origine. Édition originale illustrée de cinq burins originaux hors texte de Joseph Hecht. Exemplaire n° 129, l’un des 60 exemplaires sur papier de Hollande, numérotés de 91 à 150, sans suite. Exemplaire non rogné, complet des cinq gravures. Couverture principalement passée le long du bord droit, le reste conservant mieux sa teinte d’origine. Papier cristal ancien jauni mais en bon état général. Quelques rousseurs et petites taches localisées dans certaines gouttières et marges intérieures; gravures fraîches et bien conservées. Bon exemplaire de cette importante publication moderniste.