Poésies. 1917-1920

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.

With *Anicet ou le panorama* (Paris, NRF, 1921), Louis Aragon delivers an early, deliberately hybrid novel written at the hinge between Dada disruption and the rise of Surrealism. The book proceeds by visions and sequences—a “panorama” in which identity, desire, and the act of looking continually shift. In this bibliophile form (“tirage de tête” reserved for NRF bibliophiles), the novel also becomes a collectible object intended for a small inner circle. This copy is specifically designated “pour le Dr. Sourdel” and numbered XLVIII, underscoring the selective, personalized nature of the issue. Published under the NRF imprint, Aragon is anchored in the literary center while keeping the book’s formal audacity intact. A key item for understanding the nervous modernity of the early 1920s.

This first separate book edition of Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard is one of the decisive moments in the history of the modern book. Mallarmé turns the page from a neutral support into an active field in which silence, white space, type size and rhythm participate in meaning. The poem appeared here in 1914 from the Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française, shortly before the major typographic experiments of the twentieth century would unfold with full force. The restrained wrappers printed in black and red preserve the tension between classical French publishing culture and radical formal innovation. This ordinary copy on papier vergé d’édition represents the wider circulation of a work that must initially have seemed both enigmatic and prophetic. Even without deluxe paper or numbering, the book remains a milestone: the moment at which poetry becomes visible space. For collectors of the avant-garde, visual poetry and the artist’s book, it is a source-text.

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.