Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY. - Lot 229

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  3. Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY. - Lot 229
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Lot n° 229
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Result : 7 200EUR
Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY. - Lot 229
Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY. War pilot. Without place or date [Lyon, Imprimerie nouvelle lyonnaise, December 1943]. In-8 of 119 pp. preserved in 8 uncut and unbound quires, without cover. Attached, by the same author: Pilote de guerre. Without place or date [Lille, Presses de la Silic, 1944]. In-8, 127 pp. paperback, blue printed cover. 2 volumes in-8, each in a modern black half-calf box. Reunion of the two clandestine editions of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel published during the Occupation in Lyon and Lille. Both actor and narrator, Captain de Saint-Exupéry is ordered to take aerial photographs during a sacrifice mission in May 1940. The story is the starting point for a meditation on childhood, death and the crisis facing Western civilisation. The novel was to displease both the Vichy government and the German authorities, because it exalted the spirit of resistance and recounted the exploits of Jean Israël, and the Gaullists, who did not like this account of the defeat of the French army. Thus, Saint-Exupéry "managed to get himself banned for singing the praises of Jean Israël and condemned as a Vichyist" (Stacy de La Bruyère). The story was first published successfully in New York in February 1942, in French and English (Flight to Arras). In April, in the magazine The Atlantic (which had given the pre-original edition of the novel), the journalist Edward Weeks declared that Pilote de guerre represented, along with Churchill's speeches, "the best response that the democracies have yet found to Mein Kampf". The book was then published in Paris by Gallimard, in November, unleashing a hate campaign. The Vichy newspapers denounced this "act of Judeo-Bellicist insanity" (Pierre Masteau in Au pilori). It was finally banned by the authorities in 1943. In order to circumvent this censorship, two clandestine editions were published, first in Lyon in December 1943, then in Lille in 1944. The first copy belongs to the first clandestine edition: it was printed in Lyon in December 1943 in an edition of about 1,000 copies on the presses of the Imprimerie nouvelle lyonnaise. The copy, preserved in the form of eight unsewn and uncut quires, bears on the verso of the title the printed mention: Unique edition of four copies Nº 3 This numbered deluxe edition, anachronistic for a clandestine publication, is not mentioned by bibliographers: it is printed on a choice paper bearing the watermark: "Japon F. Barjon Moisans Isère." The Barjon paper mill in Moisans, founded in the early nineteenth century, was one of the most renowned. Its director, Roger du Marais, a member of the Resistance, was arrested in 1942 and died in deportation. His sister, Olga Joly de Colombe, took over the reins of the company. (It should be noted that the first edition of Ma civilisation de Gilbert Lely, typed clandestinely in 12 copies in 1942 when the author was wanted by the Germans, was printed on paper from Barjon de Moisans.) The second copy belongs to the clandestine edition from Lille given by Angelo after the edition from Lyon: it was printed on the Presses de la Silic. The publisher was to be killed in front of Dunkerque at the head of the French Forces of the Interior. The copy is stapled in printed cover. Signature of Jean Bousquet on the false title. Fine copies. (La Bruyère, Saint-Exupéry une vie à contre-courant, 1994, pp. 392-397 - Pélissier, Les Cinq Visages de Saint-Exupéry, 1951, pp. 112-113.)
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