N08811

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Lot 42
  • 42

Apollinaire, Guillaume

Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 USD
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Description

  • printed book
Calligrammes.  Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre (1913–1916).  Paris: Mercure de France, 1918



8vo (9 x 5 3/8 in.; 228 x 139 mm).  Wood-engraved frontispiece portrait by R. Jaudon after Picasso, publisher's wrappers bound in; lightly browned, few small chips to edges of preliminary blanks.  Half red morcco, spine in six compartments, gilt-lettered, marbled boards, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers; spine faded, some wear to extremities.

Literature

Connolly 32

Condition

8vo (9 x 5 3/8 in.; 228 x 139 mm). Wood-engraved frontispiece portrait by R. Jaudon after Picasso, publisher's wrappers bound in; lightly browned, few small chips to edges of preliminary blanks. Half red morcco, spine in six compartments, gilt-lettered, marbled boards, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers; spine faded, some wear to extremities.
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Catalogue Note

First edition, copy 210 of an unspecified edition.  A fine associaton copy, with several important manuscript items:

Laid in—Apollinaire.  ALS (signed "Apollinaire" in the return address), 1 page on a pneumatique form, Paris, postmarked 3 March 1912, to René Dupuy (nom-de-plume René Dalize).  Calligrammes is dedicated the memory of Dupuy, who died in the war in 1917.  Dupuy was one of Apollinaire's oldest friends, the two having been students together at the Collège Saint-Charles in Monte Carlo.  In 1914 Apollinaire agreed to lend his name as author to Dupuy's  La Rome des Borgia.   It has often been claimed that the poem "Les Fenêtres" (p. 17 in Calligrammes) was a collaborative effort by Apollinaire, Dupuy and André Billy.  In this note, the poet tells Dupuy he has left thirty francs for him with his concierge in the rue de Fontaine, says he cannot meet Dupuy at a café because he has no money left, and says that Ambroise Vollard has written him a "une lettre peu aimable."

Bound in—Pierre Albert-Birot.  Autograph manuscript, being a draft of an advertisement for an issue of SIC, 1 page on the verso of a printed announcement for another journal, with some deletions and corrections. In 1916, Pierre Albert-Birot (often referred to simply as PAB) was introduced by Severini to Apollinaire, who was being treated for war wounds in the Italian Hospital in Paris.  PAB then went on to publish SIC  (Sons Idées Couleurs) from 1916 to 1919.  The journal introduced much important avant-garde literature and criticism to the public.  In this presnet note for an advertisement, PAB mentions the upcoming publication of  Calligrammes and Max Jacob's Le Cornet à dés.

Also bound inAndré Salmon.  ALS, 2 pages, Paris, 11 November 1918 (i.e., 1919), to Pierre Albert-Birot, with red "PAB" inked stamp on each page.  In this important letter, written just two days after the death of Apollinaire, Salmon confirms his willingness to contribute to a memorial issue of SIC devoted to the poet.  He also says that he and André Billy have considered "le projet d'une vaste Tombeau, analogue à ceux de Baudelaire, Gautier, Verlaine"  For this project they will call on a wide range of "amis de notre mort" for assistance: "cadets, poetes, romanciers, critiques, peintres, musiciens."  Salmon had been an important friend and supporter of Apollinaire since their days together with Picasso and other painters in the Bateau Lavoir. 

Calligrammes is one of the most important books of poetry of the 20th century.  While it is noted for its typographical innovations, it is also celebrated for its war poetry.  "In the erotic poems, describing the simultaneity of battle action and sexual desire, he displays an insight into the nature of male sexual desire perhaps unique in twentieth-century poetry ..." (Martin Seymour-Smith).

"From being an intellectual Diaghilev, an entrepreneur between poetry and painting, Apollinaire flung himself vigorously into the great war; he was wounded, trepanned and dies of Spanish 'flu within a week of Wilfred Owen ....Some of the best war-poems in any language are to be found here ..." (Connolly).