Guillaume Apollinaire | Calligrammes, Paris, 1918, first edition, inscribed by the author to Michel Georges-Michel

Guillaume Apollinaire 

Calligrammes. Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre (1913-1916). Paris: Mercure de France, 1918

FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO MICHEL GEORGES-MICHEL, 8vo, wood-engraved frontispiece portrait by R. Jaudon after Picasso, calligrammatic poem to Georges-Michel on pasted-in slip in prelims, publisher's wrappers, in collector's marbled slipcase, browning at extremities

Inscribed by the author, with a calligrammatic poem to his friend, the painter, novelist and literary journalist Michel Georges-Michel (1883-1985) on a pasted-in slip:

"A M. Michel Georges-Michel pour le remercier l'un écho aimable paru dans Paris-Midi. Calligramme en forme de morceau de sucre. 

Tel un contrefilet

Ton bel entrefilet 

Michel je l'apprecie

Et je te remercie.

Guillaume Apollinaire 28 Juin 1918"

Georges-Michel, a prolific author and critic, who organised the first exhibition of Picasso in Rome in 1917, had written about the book in the magazine 'Paris-Midi'. Apollinaire's manuscript inscription tells us that the poem to Georges-Michel has been composed in the visual form of a sugar cube, hence continuing the radical experiments in typography found within the printed text.