Trois coups sous les arbres. Théâtre saisonnier
Trois coups sous les arbres is René Char’s major collected theatrical volume, published by the NRF in Paris in 1967. For the first time it gathers his complete theatre in a single book, from Sur les hauteurs to La Conjuration, thus revealing a lesser-known yet essential side of his oeuvre. Though Char is usually read as a poet, this edition shows how powerfully his voice also works in dramatic form: fragmentary, incantatory, lucid, and enigmatic at once. The survival of the wraparound band announcing “Le théâtre complet de René Char en un volume” adds a valuable layer of original presentation and publishing context. The deluxe issue on Hollande van Gelder underscores the bibliophile importance of the first edition. This copy gains still more significance from the autograph inscription to Dr Marcel Zara, whose wording resonates closely with the theatrical subject of the book. For collectors, it is a major Char work in a rare and personally charged state.
Quantity
Char, Rene
Trois coups sous les arbres. Théâtre saisonnier
1967 | Paris | NRF
An essential Char edition in a rare deluxe issue, preserved with its band and enriched by an unusually meaningful inscription to Dr Marcel Zara.
Trois coups sous les arbres is René Char’s major collected theatrical volume, published by the NRF in Paris in 1967. For the first time it gathers his complete theatre in a single book, from Sur les hauteurs to La Conjuration, thus revealing a lesser-known yet essential side of his oeuvre. Though Char is usually read as a poet, this edition shows how powerfully his voice also works in dramatic form: fragmentary, incantatory, lucid, and enigmatic at once. The survival of the wraparound band announcing “Le théâtre complet de René Char en un volume” adds a valuable layer of original presentation and publishing context. The deluxe issue on Hollande van Gelder underscores the bibliophile importance of the first edition. This copy gains still more significance from the autograph inscription to Dr Marcel Zara, whose wording resonates closely with the theatrical subject of the book. For collectors, it is a major Char work in a rare and personally charged state.
€1,050
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-8 (Octavo) approx. 20 × 26 cm
Edition Particulars
One of the 25 deluxe copies on Hollande van Gelder, with band and important autograph inscription to Dr Marcel Zara.
Print Run
90
Copy Number
No. 21
Paper
Hollande van Gelder
Inscription
Envoi
Product DETAIL
This collective volume brings together Char’s dramatic texts Sur les hauteurs, L'Abominable homme des neiges, Claire, Le Soleil des eaux, L'Homme qui marchait dans un Rayon de Soleil, and La Conjuration. It is not classical theatre built on a tightly driven plot, but dramatic writing in which lyricism, dialogue, chorus, landscape, and incantation constantly intermingle. Some pieces begin from recognizable situations and voices, yet develop primarily through rhythm, confrontation, and visionary language. The characters are less psychologically elaborated individuals than bearers of tension, knowledge, or elemental forces. The theatre can therefore be read at once as stage, poem, and moral meditation. The volume offers an exceptional overview of Char’s dramaturgical world, between postwar experience, mythic intensity, and sensory clarity. Its atmosphere is concentrated, musical, and often oracular, yet never loses its concrete earthly grounding.
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
Ribemont-Dessaignes, Georges
Ariane
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.
Book
€1,100
Gracq, Julien
Au château d'Argol
Julien Gracq’s debut novel, issued by José Corti, sets a gothic castle on the Breton coast as the stage for a charged, almost dream-logic encounter between three figures. The prose is musical and image-rich, favouring symbolic landscapes and metaphysical weather. Born near Surrealism yet distinctly independent, the book establishes Gracq’s lucid enchantment from the start. For bibliophiles this is a key title: an early Corti publication, scarce in appealing condition, and the opening note of a major twentieth-century voice. Its limited print-run and initially slow reception add to the sense of discovery. This copy is on publisher’s stock.
Book
€610
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
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