illustrated

First edition of this very rare collection devoted to the street life of Paris, as observed by an imagined flâneur, some thirty years before Baudelaire defined the characteristics of the archetypal literary and aesthetic wanderer. The plates depict various familiar and unfamiliar aspects of Paris life — the title plate depicts the widow Lagarde, a dog and cat groomer, while other plates show browsers at a book stall in the Rue de Grès, walkers in the Luxembourg gardens, female basket carriers at la Halle, various vendors and hawker and fashionable women in the Boulevard de l’Opera. Complete sets are exceptionally rare (the British Museum catalogue lists only four of the series, for example).

Forest was a prolific caricaturist, working alongside both Grandville and Daumier for satirical journals such as La Silhouette and La Caricature. WorldCat lists only the Morgan copy (Michael Sadleir; from the library of Gordon N. Ray). Inventaire du fonds français après 1800, v. VIII, p. 101

Number 87 of 145 copies on Arches (after 22 on Japon, total edition 167, plus 25 reserved copies) of this stylish art deco interpretation of the French courtly poem of the thirteenth century, with illustrations by Robert Bonfils (the last finished by hand). The text is parallel, with the original on the left and Bédier’s modern French version on the right.

The binding by Franz Ostermann, called ‘Franz’ (1839-1938) is a superb art deco counterpart to the text, taking as its cue the chevron borders of the text. The chevrons are delineated by broad bands with with applied gold leaf, over a ground of grey and black morocco panels. The central panel is reserved for lozenges of grey and gold paper and overlaid marbled paper. It is a striking masterpiece of the mature years of ‘Franz’, a binder who had participated in most of the major strands of decorative arts in France from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the art deco period. Fléty, Dictionnaire des relieurs français 138; Peyré, Histoire de la reliure de création, 189.

First edition. An extensive survey of the Welsh musical tradition by a celebrated Welsh harpist and antiquary in London. ‘Edward Jones moved to London in 1774 or early 1775, under the patronage of the London Welsh circle. The harp was very fashionable in London at the time, and Jones quickly established himself in some of the most eminent circles as a popular performer and teacher of the instrument’ (ODNB). He became harpist to the prince of Wales (later George IV). Musical and poetical Relicks, a rather costly production with an extensive subscriber’s list, contains a major essay on bardic poetry with texts and songs in both Welsh and English. An engraved plate shows the principal instruments of Welsh music, including the harp and lyre, while the second part of the book mainly comprises engraved music for some 60 Welsh tunes, some Jones’s variations, all on two staves and thus suitable also the keyboard.

‘Jones’s most important work was in the preservation of traditional Welsh music. He collected and published over 200 traditional melodies, many of which he transcribed from having heard them sung and played at home in north Wales. His concern for the protection of Welsh cultural life is also evident in his strong belief in the eisteddfod as a safeguard of Welsh cultural traditions and the purity of the Welsh language. He invariably attended eisteddfodau on his regular summer visits to Wales, often acting as an adjudicator; and on several occasions he provided and presented prizes for competitions such as singing with the harp and the best collection of penillion’.

This copy is from the library of the Dukes of Portland, containing the bookplate of William Arthur, sixth duke of Portland (1857-1943), but with an earlier gilt supralibros denoting the presence of the book in the Portland collection at an earlier date. It is quite likely to have formed part of the celebrated subterranean library collections at Welbeck Abbey of the eccentric John Bentinck fifth duke of Portland. BUCEM, p. 559; RISM J 607.

Bernard Hoepffner (1946-2017) was a noted French translator of ‘difficult’ works in English, a major part of he European literary landscape, who counted works by Joyce, Orwell, Twain, Melville, Amis, Philip Sidney, Seamus Heaney among his many acclaimed translations. Polymathic and largely self-taught as a translator, he had trained as an architect. It was presumably during this training that he created this unique and unpublished collection of abstract designs in indian in and watercolour. Each of the 20 designs bears a title: naissance, espoir déçu, reflets d’une pensée, être agressif, être passif, un desolé, perspective, rêve, rather like a set of enigmatic tarot cards for reflection and meditation. He dedicates it ‘à Dazet, vers Jean, pour Abis’. By way of a preface he simply types ‘Pas de préface’, and as a postface he writes: ‘il ne faut pas confondre Minotaure avec Minautaure’ and gives a date of 29 April 1965’.

Hoepffner spent many years in Britain, first moving there as a young man. He worked variously a furniture restorer and smallholder, before finding his vocation as a translator. He served a president of ATLAS (Association
for the Promotion of Literary Translation) and died tragically at the age of 71, swept from rocks by the sea near his home in Pembrokeshire in 2017.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with a scrolling arabesque device to the upper portion and her name in full below, with the strokes of every letter terminating in a cross.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with a vulture and a cobra, reminiscent of several of her miniature paintings in the orientalist style from the same period.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with a three-barred cross resembling the Maronite cross and the artist’s initials in an omega shaped cartouche at the foot. She gives her full name on a scroll at the foot. We have hitherto found no record of Mariette Lydis’ bookplate, nor indeed of books belonging to her, either with or without bookplates.

One of several designs created by the artist for her own ex libris, this one with an intertwining vine and two female deer, and the artist’s name on a scroll. We have hitherto found no record of Mariette Lydis’ bookplate, nor indeed of books belonging to her, either with or without bookplates.

First edition of Mariette Lydis’s first book, number 70 of 100 copies on thick handmade paper and bound in bright yellow ‘duvetine’ cloth (the limitation notice mentions copies are either in ‘duvetine’ or in Chinese silk), complete with rare original box. Though described on the title as Chinese stories by Balàzs illustrated by Lydis, in fact the illustrations came first, with the 16 fables added in response — so the book is in effect a series of pictures ‘illustrated’ with text. Its genesis lay with Lydis (then Marietta Pachoffer-Karñy) and her friend, the Viennese progressive educationalist Eugenie Schwarzwald, who approached the Hungarian emigré poet and aesthetician Balàzs (who had composed the libretto for Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle in 1911) to write a text so that a book could be published. In order to have it ready for Christmas he had to write the sixteen tales in just three weeks, producing a series of strange and sometimes chilling tales true to the striking orientalism of the images. It was a great success — Thomas Mann extolled it as ‘a beautiful book’ in a press review, while a modern critic writes: ‘Not surprisingly [Balàzs] stuck to his favorite theme — human alienation... In these fables, Balàzs suggested that men could only unite with women in the utopian world of dreams and longing’. (Congdon, Exiles and Social Thought: Hungarian Intellectuals in Germany, 2014, p. 104). Der Mantel der Träume has more recently been published in English as The Cloak of Dreams (Princeton, 2010).

The sixteen illustrations and fables are: Der Mantel der Träume; Li-Tai-Pe und der Dieb; Die Sonnenschirme; Der ungeschickte Gott; Die Opiumraucher; Der Floh; Das Alte Kind; Die Gottesräuber; Li-Tai-Pe und der Frühling; Die Ahnen; Der Mondfisch; Die Freunde; Die Rache des Kastanienbaumes; Tränenblick; Das Lehmkind and Der Sieger. The 20 illustrations are from watercolour miniatures and reproduce dates (Lugano 1921-2) and the artist’s initials ‘M.P.K’ [for Marietta Pachoffer-Karñy, from her first marriage in 1910 to Austrian businessman Julius Koloman Pachoffer-Karñy, who died April 1922].

First edition, tirage de tête, one of 20 copies on japon with two suites (followed by 50 on hollande and 150 on arches, total edition 220 copies). Mariette Lydis supplied a portrait lithograph for this stylish alphabetic collection of texts and illustrations devoted to 26 imaginary women. She illustrates ‘Therèse’, a pale, alienated young woman, to illustrate a short text by Francis de Miomandre lamenting the quotidian life of a northern housewife confined to domesticity despite dreams of a more passionate existence. The other texts include contributions from Henri de Regnier, Giraudoux, la Comtesse de Noailles, Colette, Mac Orlan and Mauriac, and the illustrations include lithographs by Dunoyer de Segonzac, Dufy, Marie Laurencin, Lydis, Daragnès, and Laborde. This is copy 131 of 150 on Arches (after 20 on Japon and 50 on Hollande).

The striking and accomplished binding bears the stamp of Louise Pinard, daughter and successor of the Parisian binder Lucien Durvand (1852-1924). After his death in 1924 his daughter Louise continued to produce bindings until 1934, possibly the date of her own death.

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).

First editions of both text and plates, this copy with the artist’s signature and additional pencil extracts from the text added in pencil to the lower margins of each plate.

Govone printed 353 copies of his large-format Baudelaire in 1928, together with just 125 copies of an accompanying suite of etched plates by Lydis. This left over 200 copies of the text un-illustrated, many of which were unsold by 1935, when Lydis prepared a new suite of plates for them - the present 33 hand-coloured plates. The text volume was reissued in new wrappers and paired with the new plates. This copy of the text is number 173 of the 290 copies on hollande, and the 33 plates are all signed in pencil.

The reissue of the 1928 text with the 1935 plates has been a frequent cause of bibliographic confusion, with the highly distinctive plates often catalogued as dating from 1928. They do not, and are entirely different from Lydis’ earlier suite.

First edition, one 353 copies of the text and just 125 of the plates (both volumes numbered 11) with all plates signed by Mariette Lydis and in their coloured state, generally considered Mariette Lydis’ finest book. The text volume contains a facsimile of Baudelaire’s self portrait and a page of facsimile of his manuscript, both from the collection of Armand Godoy, as well as the loose leaf ‘Prière d’inserer...’ by Jean Royère’, the latter not always preserved. The artist created a further sequence of coloured drawings for Les Fleurs du Mal in the 1930s issued as lithographs in 1935. These reproductions were frequently bound up with remaining copies of the 1928 text volume, causing confusion among cataloguers, with these hybrid 1928/33 volumes habitually dated 1928 without further comment. The 1935 illustrations have none of the sparse intensity of Lydis’ 1928 sequence of etched plates. Carteret IV, 63: ‘Ensemble recherchée et cotée. Une des meilleures illustrations de l’artiste’.

First edition, one of 180 numbered copies on papier vélin (total edition 250 copies). A collection of sixteen illustrated proverbs and popular superstitions (broken mirrors, the number thirteen, touching wood and so on). Somewhat in the vein of the artist’s earlier dreambook (Orientalishches Traumbuch) it contains the ironic dedication: ‘Ce livre est dédié à la femme tout spécialement, cet être frêle et sans défense, faible et indécis, qui a tellement besoin d’un appui occulte pour la guider’. The pochoir colouring is by Saude and the typography by Maurice Darantière (of Joyce’s Ulysses fame).

First edition with Lydis’s illustrations, complete with the 14 additional erotic plates to complement the 42 plates bound in (some of which are equally ‘libres’). Number 209 of 900 copies on Arches (after 56 Japon copies each with an additional drawing), total edition 956..

First edition of the catalogue to Dubuffet’s second exhibition ‘Macrobolus et Cie’ in which he exhibited a large number of hauts pâtes paintings composed of earth, gravel, tar and sand. It proved to be a significant moment in the postwar art brut revolt against high art and learned culture and provoked a significantly negative response, both among critics and physically in the gallery. Two paintings were slashed and six others damaged. The pictures elicited a more favourable response in New York the following year.

The catalogue was limited to 700 copies (this one is unnumbered) plus 30 copies with an original lithograph.

First edition, number 10 of 11 copies on Japon (which was followed by 500 copies on Hollande, total edition 511), with the etched frontispiece by Lydis, depicting Christ as the Man of Sorrows. Cuban-born Armand Godoy was an important collaborator for Lydis. ‘Le Drame de la Passion, the most grandiose subject yet attempted by Godoy, is a musical tragedy in three acts; the characters are taken literally from the Bible with the addition of allegorical figures and types representing various aspects of humanity and nature, and of a chorus’ (French Review, 8, 2, Dec. 1934, pp. 145).

First edition, one of 180 numbered copies on papier vélin (total edition 250 copies). A collection of sixteen illustrated proverbs and popular superstitions (broken mirrors, the number thirteen, touching wood and so on). Somewhat in the vein of the artist’s earlier dreambook (Orientalishches Traumbuch) it contains the ironic dedication: ‘Ce livre est dédié à la femme tout spécialement, cet être frêle et sans défense, faible et indécis, qui a tellement besoin d’un appui occulte pour la guider’. The pochoir colouring is by Saude and the typography by Maurice Darantière (of Joyce’s Ulysses fame). The attractive and unusual binding is probably the work of an accomplished amateur.

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). Worldcat lists copies at Princeton and Bridwell only outside continental Europe (to which we add the Edinburgh copy.

A scarce and substantial brochure for a charity gala, to which Mariette Lydis contributed eight full-page illustrations (some for adverts) mainly of young girls or women. Other artistic contributors include Marie Laurencin, Raoul Dufy and Vertès and there are further contributions from Jean Cocteau, Daisy Fellowes, Arthur Honneger, Pierre Mac-Orlan, François Mauriac, André Maurois and Colette. Lydis is the largest single contributor. The Bal des petits lits was an annual fundraising event for the benefit to sick and disadvantaged children and attracted the patronage of leading artistic figures each year.