La Dragonne
*La Dragonne* belongs to the posthumous publications that further deepened the enigmatic and unfinished aspect of Alfred Jarry’s oeuvre. This first edition, with a preface by Jean Saltas, presents a late prose work that still bears the full force of the imagination behind *Ubu roi*. The book moves between novel, satire, and verbal hallucination, revealing Jarry as a writer who continually places narrative logic under strain. That is precisely what gives it such appeal for collectors: one reads here not only a text, but a literary legacy still in formation. The Gallimard edition, dated 1943 and also described in trade sources as an early 1944 issue, reflects the sustained twentieth-century rediscovery of Jarry. This copy also belongs to the extremely small issue on vélin pur fil. In its elegant binding, the volume acquires a classical dignity that beautifully contrasts with the unruly spirit of the
Quantity
Jarry, Alfred
ILLUSTRATORS
ILLUSTRATORS
ILLUSTRATORS
La Dragonne
1943 | Paris | Gallimard
A rare posthumous Jarry, the volume is both a literary document and a first-rate large-paper copy. In this carefully presented state, it remains a highly desirable piece for any serious Jarry collection.
*La Dragonne* belongs to the posthumous publications that further deepened the enigmatic and unfinished aspect of Alfred Jarry’s oeuvre. This first edition, with a preface by Jean Saltas, presents a late prose work that still bears the full force of the imagination behind *Ubu roi*. The book moves between novel, satire, and verbal hallucination, revealing Jarry as a writer who continually places narrative logic under strain. That is precisely what gives it such appeal for collectors: one reads here not only a text, but a literary legacy still in formation. The Gallimard edition, dated 1943 and also described in trade sources as an early 1944 issue, reflects the sustained twentieth-century rediscovery of Jarry. This copy also belongs to the extremely small issue on vélin pur fil. In its elegant binding, the volume acquires a classical dignity that beautifully contrasts with the unruly spirit of the
€450
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-12 (Duodecimo) approx. 17 × 22 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 20 deluxe copies on vélin pur fil.
Print Run
20
Copy Number
No. III
Paper
vélin pur fil
Inscription
No inscription
1
Edition Particulars:
We welcome private inquiries, collaborations with institutions, and acquisition requests. Each message is treated with discretion and respect. We welcome private inquiries, collaborations with institutions, and acquisition requests.
1
Print Run:
Condition Report:
1
Copy Number:
Condition Report:
1
Paper:
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1
Signed:
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Product DETAIL
The novel unfolds as a wayward and often disorienting prose text in which Jarry bends conventional narrative forms to his own purposes. Characters, situations, and tone seem constantly to shift, as though the book deliberately resisted any single, stable reading. Beneath that apparent caprice lies a sharp sense of parody and literary dismantling. The text belongs to the group of Jarry projects known only belatedly, and therefore carries the aura of a work transmitted through manuscript survival. Jean Saltas’s preface frames that publication and helps situate the volume within Jarry’s legacy. *La Dragonne* is thus at once a novel, a curiosity, and an important document of an exceptional literary career.
Ponge, Francis
Le Parti pris des choses
These two copies of Le Parti pris des choses form a remarkable paired witness to Francis Ponge’s visit to Zurich in March 1949. The book itself is one of the decisive prose works of French modernity: not lyrical confession, but a precise encounter with the mute dignity of things. Ponge gives ordinary objects — soap, bread, an oyster, a pebble, a cigarette — a language at once exact, ironic and sensuous. The double inscription to Frank Thiessing and to Madame Frank Thiessing gives the pair a strongly personal resonance. Frank C. Thiessing belonged to the Swiss world of graphic design, publishing and visual modernism, notably in relation to Hans Erni. These copies therefore connect Ponge’s literary materialism with the artistic and typographic networks of post-war Zurich.
Book
€1,300
Jarry, Alfred
La Dragonne
La Dragonne is the posthumous first edition of Alfred Jarry’s final novel, published in 1943 by Gallimard/N.R.F. with a preface by Jean Saltas. The book carries the tension of a text that long remained suspended between completion and fragment before taking printed form decades after Jarry’s death. It reveals Jarry’s late imaginative world through autobiographical echoes, Breton legend and Symbolist narrative structures. This copy is further distinguished by its green publisher’s decorated boards, designed after a model by Mario Prassinos, placing it within the bibliophile culture of NRF bindings. The combination of a posthumous Jarry text, an artist-designed binding and a numbered copy on Alfa Mousse gives the volume particular appeal. It is not an illustrated artist’s book in the strict sense, but an object in which literature, publishing history and binding design meet with unusual tact.
Book
€280
Vian, Boris
L’Herbe rouge
L’Herbe rouge is one of Boris Vian’s most singular novels, born of the nervous imagination of post-war Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The first edition appeared in 1950 with Toutain and belongs to the group of Vian publications that often met with limited success during his lifetime before acquiring cult status. The book combines science-fiction-like invention, existential anxiety, absurdist humour and emotional disarray. That mixture makes it especially relevant to The Hidden Page: it is not part of a strict historical avant-garde, but it breathes the pataphysical and experimental spirit of post-war literature. This copy is materially weak, with a reglued spine, pasted-down first leaf and lacking final blank. It nevertheless remains bibliographically and literarily meaningful as the original edition of a central Vian text.
Book
€250
Tzara, Tristan
Grains et issues
Grains et issues is a key publication in Tristan Tzara’s passage from Dadaist disruption to Surrealist and revolutionary reflection. The book appeared in 1935 with Denoël et Steele, at a moment when poetry, politics and theory were becoming increasingly intertwined within the avant-garde. Tzara, once the voice and organizer of Dada in Zurich and Paris, no longer seeks only the explosion of meaning, but also a dialectic between dream, matter, history and liberation. This original edition is bibliophilically notable as a large-paper copy: one of the copies on vergé d’Arches, signed by the author. Its unopened state preserves the tension between the book as an instrument of reading and the book as an untouched object. For The Hidden Page, it is an exceptionally strong match: a major historical avant-garde author, a key text and a scarce signed deluxe variant.
