Tournoiements aveugles
In *Tournoiements aveugles* (1987) Francis Ponge returns to compact, exact prose that lets things speak. Issued by L’ire des vents, the book is typographically crisp and bibliophilic: a quarto on handmade paper, luxuriously bound in brown morocco with balsa boards, chemise and slipcase. The material choices—light balsa, warm leather, breathing wove—sharpen the text’s sensorial acuity. Each “whirling” circles its subject through turns and reprises until clarity is released. The spare layout paces both reading and silence. A model fusion of poetic precision and fine press craft.
Quantity
Ponge, Francis
Tournoiements aveugles
1987 | Paris | L’ire des vents
A late Ponge on handmade paper, conceived with tactile precision and quiet intensity.
In *Tournoiements aveugles* (1987) Francis Ponge returns to compact, exact prose that lets things speak. Issued by L’ire des vents, the book is typographically crisp and bibliophilic: a quarto on handmade paper, luxuriously bound in brown morocco with balsa boards, chemise and slipcase. The material choices—light balsa, warm leather, breathing wove—sharpen the text’s sensorial acuity. Each “whirling” circles its subject through turns and reprises until clarity is released. The spare layout paces both reading and silence. A model fusion of poetic precision and fine press craft.
€550
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-4 (Quarto) approx. 25 × 32 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 50 numbered copies on handmade wove from the Moulin de Pombié.
Print Run
50
Copy Number
45
Paper
vélin à la main du moulin de Pombié
Inscription
No inscription
Product DETAIL
The volume gathers brief prose poems in which Ponge approaches the world by circling—reformulations, inversions, attention to detail. Language gropes, turns, arrests; meaning emerges from friction and reprise. The clean typography enforces a slow read. The quarto scale and handmade paper lend gravity to a modest register. Balsa boards add lightness and tactile tension.

Dominique Fourcade, Pierre Buraglio · Buraglio, Pierre
Au travail ma chérie
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.
Book
€725

Eugène Ionesco
Antidotes
*Antidotes* brings together Eugène Ionesco’s polemical, autobiographical and literary reflections spanning more than fifteen years and provides an important key to the thought underlying his theatre. Most of the texts had first appeared in periodicals between 1961 and 1976 before being collected here in book form. Ionesco attacks ideological rigidity, political orthodoxies and collective conformity, while equally resisting attempts to reduce the human condition to purely social explanations. Art, culture, freedom and the metaphysical uncertainty of existence recur throughout the volume. His characteristic distrust of slogans and fossilised language assumes an explicitly polemical form in these essays. Gallimard’s collective first edition also includes an exceptionally restricted deluxe issue of only 25 copies on Arches Arjomari-Prioux wove paper, the sole large-paper issue. This copy is number 8 and is preserved in very good condition, making it a particularly desirable example of the edition.
Book
€250

Michaux, Henri
Affrontements
This 1981 edition of Henri Michaux's 'Affrontements' is a unique copy, enhanced by a handwritten and signed dedication from the author to Colette Roubaud. The dedication, brief yet profound, bears Michaux's characteristic poetic signature and adds a unique personal dimension to the work. The book is further complemented by an unsent, melancholic letter from Colette Roubaud herself, dated 'Samedi 22 Août' from Paris. This letter, which speaks of a missed encounter and a reluctance that prevented her from seeing Michaux at Beaubourg, creates an intimate and almost tangible document of an unfulfilled connection. This copy is not only a literary edition of Michaux's work but also a window into a personal interaction, frozen in time. The whole constitutes a rare and intriguing find for collectors of modern literature and Michaux's oeuvre.
Book
€765

Eugène Ionesco
Un homme en question
In *Un homme en question*, published in 1979, Eugène Ionesco brought together recent articles, chronicles and interviews to form a highly personal and polemical self-portrait. The great innovator of post-war theatre appears here not only as a dramatist but as an essayist continually questioning his age, his convictions and his own anxieties. Politics, ideology and the cultural crisis of the West alternate with childhood memories, dreams, fantasies and his recurring fear of death. The result is considerably more intimate than a conventional collection of essays. At the same time, the continuity with Ionesco’s theatre is unmistakable: the same distrust of collective certainties, fossilised language and conformity shapes these reflections. Gallimard’s first edition also exists in an exceptionally restricted bibliophile form. Only 25 numbered copies were printed on Arches Arjomari-Prioux wove paper, the sole large-paper issue. This very good to near-fine copy therefore represents one of the scarcest forms of Ionesco’s later prose.
Book
€370

When a Signature Becomes Provenance
A signature confirms; a dedication connects; an association copy tells a story.

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.

Size does (not) matter
Size does (not) matter: The Paradoxical Power of Format in Avant-Garde Book Art





