Lot n° 102
Estimation :
2000 - 3000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 1 769EUR
André BRETON.
The Situation of Surrealism between the Two Wars. Speech to French students at Yale University. No place or date [1942].
In-4 of 17 mimeographed leaves on verso only, cover preserved in strong brown paper : unbleached cloth, red morocco title-piece throughout (G. Gauché).
Genuine first mimeographed edition of 250 copies.
Handwritten mention in ink signed "RS" on the verso of the last leaf indicating the print run.
"The speech had a first mimeographed edition, without mention of place or date [...]. The differences in the text are insignificant, but at the end there was an additional paragraph that served as an introduction to projections and the reading of some poems by Breton himself [...]. The text was actually published in VVV (March 1943), with disturbing drawings by Max Ernst, then in September 1945 in a booklet printed by Fontaine" (OEuvres complètes de Breton, III, Pléiade, pp. 1354-1355).
The poems read by Breton are La Jolie Rousse by Guillaume Apollinaire, Monsieur Aa l'antiphilosophe by Tristan
Tzara, En l' honneur des muets by Paul Eluard, Le Sang répandu by Benjamin Péret and L'Union libre by Breton himself.
Important autograph letter on the cover:
My dear Robert Valançay, I absolutely disavow this wretched "edition" (less clandestine than fraudulent) and on which I call more than on any other species of my books the tooth of the rats
André Breton
Astonishing letter underlining the unofficial character of the edition - which Breton did not however hesitate to offer and dedicate
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