Théâtre mirlitonesque — Ubu sur la butte & Par la taille
This set of two Sansot first editions from 1906 puts Alfred Jarry exactly where he belongs: not on the margins, but at the ignition point of literary modernity. *Ubu sur la butte* and *Par la taille* appeared in the mischievously titled series *Théâtre mirlitonesque*—small pamphlets with outsized disruptive force. Jarry’s theatre here is not “playwriting” in the classical sense but an assault on morality, power, and logic: grotesque, absurd, deliberately vulgar, yet rhythmically precise. *Ubu sur la butte* offers a two-act reduction of *Ubu roi*, a key text in the Ubu corpus where farce becomes a political engine. *Par la taille*, a “comic and moral” one-act in prose and verse, distills Jarry’s talent for sabotaging conventional dramaturgy. Both were printed in a limited run of 600 copies, with 400 numbered on tinted wove (vergé teinté); *Par la taille* is explicitly No. 62 here. As proto-avant-garde objects—portable, fragile, polemical—these booklets stand on the threshold of Dada, Surrealism, ’pataphysics, and the later theatre of the absurd.
Quantity
Jarry, Alfred
Théâtre mirlitonesque — Ubu sur la butte & Par la taille
1906 | Paris | E. Sansot & Cie
Two Sansot first editions in *Théâtre mirlitonesque*: Jarry as detonator—pamphlet form, limited print run.
This set of two Sansot first editions from 1906 puts Alfred Jarry exactly where he belongs: not on the margins, but at the ignition point of literary modernity. *Ubu sur la butte* and *Par la taille* appeared in the mischievously titled series *Théâtre mirlitonesque*—small pamphlets with outsized disruptive force. Jarry’s theatre here is not “playwriting” in the classical sense but an assault on morality, power, and logic: grotesque, absurd, deliberately vulgar, yet rhythmically precise. *Ubu sur la butte* offers a two-act reduction of *Ubu roi*, a key text in the Ubu corpus where farce becomes a political engine. *Par la taille*, a “comic and moral” one-act in prose and verse, distills Jarry’s talent for sabotaging conventional dramaturgy. Both were printed in a limited run of 600 copies, with 400 numbered on tinted wove (vergé teinté); *Par la taille* is explicitly No. 62 here. As proto-avant-garde objects—portable, fragile, polemical—these booklets stand on the threshold of Dada, Surrealism, ’pataphysics, and the later theatre of the absurd.
€400
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-18 (approx. 17x11 cm)
Edition Particulars
Includes: (1) *Ubu sur la butte*, two-act reduction of *Ubu roi*, first edition, limited to 600; one of 400 on tinted wove. (2) *Par la taille*, a “comic and moral” one-act in prose and verse, first edition, limited to 600; numbered copy on tinted wove, No. 62.
Print Run
600
Copy Number
No. 62 (voor *Par la taille*)
Paper
vergé teinté
Inscription
No inscription
Product DETAIL
*Ubu sur la butte* reworks the Ubu material in compressed form: a two-act reduction that speeds up and sharpens Ubu’s grotesque logic of power. Hyperbole, vulgarity, and ritual repetition expose authority as pure clowning. *Par la taille* operates as a theatrical miniature: in both prose and verse, Jarry lets a “comic and moral” one-act derail into paradox, wordplay, and inversion. Together the texts show how he frees the stage from psychology and plausibility. What remains is a mechanism of language and force—laughing and biting at once.

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First volume in the Préférence series: a focused encounter between Dominique Fourcade and Pierre Buraglio. The Imprimerie nationale produced an exemplary typographic edition on Rives wove, limited to 100 copies signed by both. Buraglio “illuminates” the book with spare, hand-made interventions—strokes, contours, accents—that let the page breathe. The plain wrappers in a sturdy case stress the workshop feel. This copy bears a presentation to Jacques Dauchez, adding a vivid bibliophilic provenance. A scarce, exact book where typography, gesture, and poetry hold each other in balance.
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