Grains et issues

A remarkable copy of *Ariane*, published in the *Les Cahiers Nouveaux* series, inscribed with a poetic and enigmatic message by Ribemont-Dessaignes to Jacques Matarasso. This deluxe Japan paper edition was elegantly rebound in 1994 by Georges Leroux, in a restrained style that echoes the work’s Dadaist spirit.

Julien Gracq’s debut novel, issued by José Corti, sets a gothic castle on the Breton coast as the stage for a charged, almost dream-logic encounter between three figures. The prose is musical and image-rich, favouring symbolic landscapes and metaphysical weather. Born near Surrealism yet distinctly independent, the book establishes Gracq’s lucid enchantment from the start. For bibliophiles this is a key title: an early Corti publication, scarce in appealing condition, and the opening note of a major twentieth-century voice. Its limited print-run and initially slow reception add to the sense of discovery. This copy is on publisher’s stock.

Traduit du silence. Proses is one of Joë Bousquet’s rare pre-war publications, issued in the poetic series of Les Cahiers du Journal des Poètes. Its title already contains the central paradox of the book: writing as if translated from silence, seclusion and inward intensity. This copy is notable for its deluxe issue on Featherweight fort, numbered with the crowned-heart device, but above all for its signed autograph inscription to Jeanne and James Ducellier. The Ducelliers were among Bousquet’s closest confidants in Carcassonne and belonged to the circle where literature, friendship and surrealism converged. This is therefore not merely an early and refined edition, but a tangible document of a personal and artistic network. The book connects Bousquet’s enclosed room with the broader surrealist constellation of Max Ernst, Paul Éluard, Yves Tanguy and Raymond Roussel.

With *152 Proverbes mis au goût du jour*, Paul Éluard and Benjamin Péret published in 1925 one of the most characteristic linguistic experiments of the first phase of organized Surrealism. The book takes one of the most familiar forms of collective wisdom, the proverb, and subjects it to systematic disruption. Familiar expressions are shifted, crossed and rewritten so that their apparently self-evident logic gives way to unexpected meanings. The collaboration brings together two central voices of the young Surrealist movement in a text where humour and poetic subversion are inseparable. The work appeared in the immediate orbit of *La Révolution surréaliste*, the periodical that from late 1924 served as a major organ of the movement. It is also bibliographically significant as the first title of the Éditions Surréalistes, recorded as Sebbag, no. 1 and also referenced as Lhermitte 236. This copy belongs to the ordinary issue on edition paper. As an early independent Surrealist publication, the book has both literary and documentary importance.