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Les chevaliers de la table ronde. 

SKU LESC-005

Jean Cocteau’s *Les chevaliers de la table ronde* is his Arthurian three-act play, published in 1937 by Gallimard. Here the Round Table myth is reframed through crystalline dialogue and an oneiric sense of staging. The NRF original edition bears a frontispiece “after Cocteau”, signalling the author’s double gift as draughtsman and playwright. This copy is from the tête de tirage on vélin pur fil, numbered 27 of only 40. Generous margins and quiet typography heighten the ritual clarity of the text. Preserved in mint state, it retains the tactile luxury of Parisian interwar printing. For the bibliophile, it fuses literary invention, fine paper, and a discreet artist’s touch.

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Les chevaliers de la table ronde. 
1937 | Paris | Gallimard (NRF)
A rare head-of-issue in exceptional condition, uniting text, drawing and the art of printing.

Jean Cocteau’s *Les chevaliers de la table ronde* is his Arthurian three-act play, published in 1937 by Gallimard. Here the Round Table myth is reframed through crystalline dialogue and an oneiric sense of staging. The NRF original edition bears a frontispiece “after Cocteau”, signalling the author’s double gift as draughtsman and playwright. This copy is from the tête de tirage on vélin pur fil, numbered 27 of only 40. Generous margins and quiet typography heighten the ritual clarity of the text. Preserved in mint state, it retains the tactile luxury of Parisian interwar printing. For the bibliophile, it fuses literary invention, fine paper, and a discreet artist’s touch.

€1,150
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-12 (Duodecimo) approx. 17 × 22 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 40 copies on vélin pur fil, numbered 27; with a frontispiece “after Cocteau”.
Print Run
40
Copy Number
No. 27
Paper
vélin pur fil

Product DETAIL

Across three acts Cocteau sets Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot in a mesh of loyalty and betrayal. The language is taut and lucid, with irony pricking ceremony. Ritual tableaux alternate with short, nervy exchanges. Magic, prophecy and stage machinery frame a drama where desire collides with chivalric honour. The courtly code is tested against a modern conscience. The legend emerges as vulnerable, and human.

Arriver à se réveiller
Michaux, Henri · Bettencourt, Pierre
Arriver à se réveiller

A rare first edition of Arriver à se réveiller, written by Henri Michaux in the tremulous post-war years. The text unfolds as an inward journey toward lucidity, where sleep and waking mirror each other. Printed and published by Pierre Bettencourt in his own workshop, the edition’s small run preserves the work’s intimacy. The title-page vignette, a linocut by Bettencourt, sets a spare, rhythmic visual key that amplifies Michaux’s vigilant, vulnerable tone. This copy is handsomely bound in brown morocco with balsa boards by Miguet, a tactile nod to lightness under tension. For bibliophiles, it is an exemplary union of poetry, craft, and experiment. The volume embodies the independence of the post-war small press and Michaux’s radical sensitivity.

Illustrated Book
€680
Au dépens des mots
Hugnet, Georges · Valentine, Hugo
Au dépens des mots

An exceptional oblong in-16 volume bound in a single tome, comprising three editions of Au dépens des mots, including the exceedingly rare tête-de-tête edition on nacré japon.

Illustrated Book
€3,200
Au rendez-vous allemand
Éluard, Paul
Au rendez-vous allemand

Au rendez-vous allemand is one of the emblematic collections of Éluard’s wartime poetry. The book appeared in 1944 from Les Éditions de Minuit, the publishing house that, under the Occupation, became a moral landmark of the French literary Resistance. The volume gathers poems in which love, mourning, revolt and hope appear not as abstractions but as immediate necessities under German rule. The frontispiece, a portrait of the poet after Picasso, gives the book a powerful artistic signature: two voices of modern France, poet and artist, stand here in the same struggle. This is an ordinary, unnumbered copy, but signed by Éluard on the first page. That signature makes the book more than a Resistance document: it becomes a tangible witness to literary presence in a historically charged year. For the collector, it unites the clandestine aura of Minuit, Picasso’s name and Éluard’s own hand.

Illustrated Book
€350
Aphorismes et variétés.
Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme · Dufy, Raoul
Aphorismes et variétés.

An elegant *livre d’artiste* pairing Brillat-Savarin’s witty gastronomic aphorisms with twenty full-page original etchings by Raoul Dufy. Dufy’s airy, musical line lends the text a radiant cadence, turning the maxims into vignettes of conviviality and taste. Limited to 200 copies on Rives wove; this is no. 19, for the subscriber Mr Bernard-Beaumaine. Untrimmed copy with original covers and spine preserved, luxuriously rebound by F. Rousseau in 2001. Clear provenance enhances its appeal. Wrapper slightly toned; box with only the faintest rubbing. A refined encounter between culinary letters and modernist design.

Illustrated Book
€1,900
Studies & Dossiers
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When a Signature Becomes Provenance

A signature confirms; a dedication connects; an association copy tells a story.

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The Fragile Meaning of ‘Complet’

In auction descriptions, “complete” often sounds reassuring — but it is only meaningful when verified against the colophon, the justification, and the bibliography. For The Hidden Page, clarity begins where vague market language ends.

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The Avant-Garde and the Illustrated Word

How the Twentieth Century Recast the Book as an Artistic and Ideological Medium

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