Ubu Roi
This edition of *Ubu Roi* brings together one of the founding texts of the modern avant-garde and the vivid, free graphic language of Pierre Alechinsky. Issued as the Centenary edition, it reproduces the text of the 1896 original while re-situating Jarry’s explosive drama within a distinctly bibliophilic framework. The book retains the material lightness of an issue in loose sheets, while the 26 illustrations give it a strong visual rhythm. The encounter between Jarry and Alechinsky is especially fruitful: both share a taste for disruption, grotesque energy, and playful subversion. The result is more than a reprint; it is a contemporary re-reading by a major artist. This copy on papier de chandelle, accompanied by a signed original lithograph, is among the most desirable deluxe issues of the edition. For the collector, it compellingly unites literary canon, artist’s book, and rarity.
Quantity
Jarry, Alfred
Alechinsky, Pierre
Ubu Roi
1996 | Fontfroide | Bibliothèque Artistique & Littéraire
A remarkable artist’s edition of Jarry’s most famous text, in which bibliographical exactitude and visual freedom reinforce one another with unusual force. This deluxe copy with original lithograph ranks among the most desirable states of the edition.
This edition of *Ubu Roi* brings together one of the founding texts of the modern avant-garde and the vivid, free graphic language of Pierre Alechinsky. Issued as the Centenary edition, it reproduces the text of the 1896 original while re-situating Jarry’s explosive drama within a distinctly bibliophilic framework. The book retains the material lightness of an issue in loose sheets, while the 26 illustrations give it a strong visual rhythm. The encounter between Jarry and Alechinsky is especially fruitful: both share a taste for disruption, grotesque energy, and playful subversion. The result is more than a reprint; it is a contemporary re-reading by a major artist. This copy on papier de chandelle, accompanied by a signed original lithograph, is among the most desirable deluxe issues of the edition. For the collector, it compellingly unites literary canon, artist’s book, and rarity.
€850
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-8 (Octavo) approx. 20 × 26 cm
Edition Particulars
One of 75 numbered copies on papier de chandelle, accompanied by a signed original lithograph.
Print Run
1000
Copy Number
No. 41
Paper
papier de chandelle
Inscription
Signed by the Illustrator
1
Edition Particulars:
We welcome private inquiries, collaborations with institutions, and acquisition requests. Each message is treated with discretion and respect. We welcome private inquiries, collaborations with institutions, and acquisition requests.
1
Print Run:
Condition Report:
1
Copy Number:
Condition Report:
1
Paper:
Condition Report:
1
Signed:
Condition Report:
Product DETAIL
*Ubu Roi* remains a hinge-work of modern literature, at once parody, political grotesque, and verbal explosion. The drama undermines authority, good taste, and theatrical convention with a brutality that still feels strikingly fresh. Père Ubu is at once monster, clown, and caricature of power, which is precisely why he became an enduring cultural icon. In this edition, the text is restored in full as connected to its earliest puppet-theatre context of 1888. That gives the volume not only bibliographical value but also a strong historical awareness. The reader thus encounters a work that is both a classic and a still-living provocation.
Dorgelès, Roland · Dunoyer de Segonzac
La Boule de gui
This first edition brings together three war episodes omitted from Les Croix de bois: La Boule de gui, Permissionnaires, and Le Prisonnier bénévole, formerly titled L’Ennemi des vieux. Published in 1922, it is also the first illustrated issue of these texts. André Dunoyer de Segonzac accompanies Dorgelès’s front-line prose with 42 reproduced drawings and five original drypoints hors texte, including the frontispiece. His nervous, direct line closely matches the stories’ hard observation and comradeship. This copy, number 401 on tinted Lafuma paper, belongs to the regular yet still limited issue of 519 copies on this stock. Devauchelle’s exceptional artist’s binding translates trenches, crosses, and explosions into a forceful modern design, turning the volume into a distinctive bibliophile object.
Ill Book
€1,150
Char, Rene · Stael, Nicolas de
Arrière-histoire du poème pulvérisé
*Arrière-histoire du poème pulvérisé* is a later illustrated edition of a key text in which René Char looks back on the genesis and inner background of *Le Poème pulvérisé*. Published in 1972 by Imprimerie Union, it opens with a colour frontispiece by Nicolas de Staël. The pairing of Char and de Staël is especially charged: two post-war voices, each seeking concentration, clarity, and rupture in his own medium. This copy is one of only six hors commerce copies on Arches and is signed. The autograph presentation inscription to Doctor Marcel Zara, with poetic quotation and October 1972 dating, makes it a deeply personal copy.
Ill Book
€920
Crevel, René · Tchelitchew, Pavel
L’esprit contre la raison
L’esprit contre la raison is a brief, vehement text from the heart of French Surrealism. René Crevel writes here not as a systematic philosopher, but as a polemicist intent on disturbing the order of reason, morality and bourgeois clarity. The book was published in 1927 by Les Cahiers du Sud, a review and publishing circle receptive to literary experiment beyond the Parisian centre. Pavel Tchelitchew’s frontispiece portrait gives the volume a strong visual presence and links Crevel’s voice to the cosmopolitan artistic world of the 1920s. In its original wrappers, the copy preserves the sober, nervous materiality of a text that reads more like an assault than a treatise. Its status as a review copy also marks it as a book meant to move through the literary networks of its moment.
Ill Book
€280
Ruscha, Edward · Ruscha, Ed
Some Los Angeles Apartments
Some Los Angeles Apartments is one of Ed Ruscha’s iconic early artist’s books, devoted to the banal architecture of Los Angeles. Instead of monuments, drama or urban glamour, Ruscha shows ordinary apartment buildings, coolly photographed and without visible sentimentality. This second edition of 1970, printed in 3,000 unnumbered copies, confirms the wider circulation of his conceptual book form. The small format, sober wrappers and original glassine wrapper make it an essential Ruscha object.
