Bal des petits lits blancs. Opéra, 6 Février 1934. by…

Square 4to (250 × 210 mm), ff. 15 (text, on blue and pink paper) plus 26 ff. plates and illustrations, including some printed on translucent calque paper, some printed in colours, and some photographs (several printed on ‘papier metallisé’). Minor paper adhesion to surface of a couple of the photographs. Pictorial wrappers, original plastic comb binding and transparent plastic covers. A few leaves at the beginning with slight loosening, but all secure. Wrappers slightly soiled at the edges. A very good copy of a item that that has proved fragile.

First edition with the Lydis illustrations. One of a total edition of 131 copies, this one of the 115 on papier de Rives). The illustrations, many in the style of illuminated miniatures or icons are transformed through brilliant pochoir colouring executed in the workshop of master colourist Jean Saude, reproducing the artist’s signature on each.
These verse litanies, after the traditional catholic Marian litany, are entirely the creation of Armand Godoy and were first published (unillustrated) in 1930. Symbolist poet Godoy was born in Havana in 1880 and spent the first part of his life in Cuba and Peru, working in banking and the tobacco trade, before emigrating to France in 1919 with the express intention of becoming a poet ‘dans la langue de Baudelaire’. Much influenced by the Parnassians and the symbolists he was also a major collector of books, manuscripts and prints, amassing an unrivalled collection of Baudelaireiana. Among his numerous small-scale published works in French is his translation of Poe’s Raven — Le Corbeau d’Edgar Poe (Émile-Paul frères, 1929, with a frontispiece by Lydis).