Rare books from Triolet Rare Books, ABAA

Paris: Librairie Stock, 1923. First edition. Quarto. [272] pp. Original printed wrappers, glassine. Some minor handling wear, front and rear cover slightly shorter than text block, near fine. Of a total edition of 625 copies, this is one of 100 copies on Madagascar, with an original drawing by Cocteau bound in with annotated title ("avec dessin ou annotation de l'auteur sur page de garde"). The drawing is of a terrier with a bow on its collar, initialed and annotated by the artist, "Chien fait par Picasso dans un seul bout de carton." A beautiful, fairly early collection of Cocteau's drawings, printed on rectos only and presented without text in some thematic sections (including "Le mauvais lieu," which includes scenes of bars populated by cross-dressers, same-sex couples, and others), and many portraits, including Satie, Radiguet, Bakst, and Picasso, to whom the book is dedicated. Housed in a custom clamshell box. OCLC locates less than twenty copies in America across several records.

[Paris]: Fernand Mourlot, 1949. First edition. Folio (17 x 12 ¾ inches). 60, [53] pp. Unbound gatherings laid into an open folding vellum portfolio, housed in publisher's clamshell case. Original color lithograph frontispiece, 26 en texte lithographs, and 12 offset color lithographs. One of 250 numbered copies on vélin d'Arches. Signed by the artist and author on the justification page. Some minor foxing throughout, some offsetting from prints. Cloth is separating slightly on the lower rear spine edge of the case, not affecting structure. Near fine."Achevé d'imprimer le 25 février 1950 a Paris sur les presses de J. Dumoulin, H. Barthélemy directeur, pour le compte de Fernand Mourlot et André Sauret. Les lithographies originales de Georges Braque et les reproductions ont été tirées sous la surveillance de l'artiste par Mourlot frères"--Colophon. "Le texte de Pierre Reverdy, Une aventure méthodique, est orné de vingt-six lithographies originales de Georges Braque qui a également exécuté… Read More

Paris: Aux Editions Jeanne Bucher, 1934. First edition. One of 800 numbered copies (of a total edition of 816 copies). Five volumes, in publisher's slipcase. Each volume is numbered 335, interestingly some are stamped and some are hand-numbered. The five volumes are as follows: Premier Cahier: Dimanche / Elément: La Boue. Exemple: Le Lion de Belfort. Deuxième Cahier: Lundi / Elément: L'Eau. Exemple: L'Eau. Troisième Cahier: Mardi / Elément: Le Feu. Exemple: La Cour du Dragon. Quatrième Cahier: Mercredi / Elément: Le Sang. Exemple: Oedipe. Dernier Cahier: Jeudi, Vendredi, Samedi / Eléments: Le Noir; La Vue; Inconnu. Exemples: Le Rire du Coq, L'Ile de Paques; L'Interieur de la Vue; La Cle des Chants. Slight sunning to spine of each volume, as often seen, hint of wear to spine tips. Overall an excellent set. One of Ernst's most important and extraordinary works, a narrative without text, in which he collaged the images from nineteenth century engravings. This was the third of his collaged… Read More

Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1931. First edition. Translated by Kay Boyle. [8], 38, [8] pp. Publisher's black cloth boards, decorated in elaborate gilt and blind, designed by Ernst in collaboration with A.J. Gonon. Nineteen photograms with tissue guards, with text printed in red. One of 200 copies on "finest bristol paper," of a total edition of 255 copies. Some minor wear to head and tail of spine, faint old tidemark to lower corner of leaves, near fine. Housed in a custom modern slipcase. A major surrealist collaboration. Crevel's text was the first chapter of his novel Babylone, translated by Kay Boyle at the request of Black Sun publisher Caresse Crosby. The nineteen photograms (or cliché-verres) illustrating the book were produced using a similar process to Man Ray's rayographs. Ernst's images were made by combining textural rubbings and line drawings on sheets of thin translucent paper, and then using those sheets as negatives to create a reverse image on photosensitive paper. These were then… Read More

Hartford: James Thrall Soby, 1934. First edition. Publisher's plastic comb binding, stiff wrappers. Minor vertical crease to front cover, light chipping to outer edge. Upper and lower portions of the front cover coming loose from the binding, but the cover is still held firmly. Internally clean and bright. Now housed in a custom clamshell box. The very rare first issue. As Roth describes, the publisher "attempted to generate demand where none existed by suggesting the edition had sold out. After replacing the title pages of these copies- presumably a healthy percentage of the run whose sales had in fact, been slow to none- with one stating 'deuxième edition,' second edition, he returned them for sale. Copies with the original title page are exceedingly rare." Man Ray's first monograph, with texts in English and French by Duchamp, Tzara, Eluard, Breton, and Man Ray himself. Frontispiece portrait of Man Ray by Picasso. Contains 104 heliogravure images. "Part art, part illustration, [the book] was… Read More

Paris: Editions GLM, 1935. First edition. Unbound folded gatherings laid into publisher's photographically illustrated wrapper, as issued. Some creasing to the front cover at the spine, as often seen, slight rubbing to head and tail of spine. Interior clean and bright. Housed in a custom chemise and slipcase, with title printed on front cover of chemise and displayed through cut-outs on the slipcase. Binder's signature within the chemise, dated 1988.Of a total edition of 1225 copies, this is one of 200 roman-numeraled hors commerce copies. Signed on the half-title by both Eluard and Man Ray, and inscribed to Leon Pierre-Quint, the literary director and editor of the major surrealist publishing house Editions du Sagittaire, and friend and biographer to Proust and Gide. Although not an uncommon book, the hors commerce copies are less seen, and it is very rare to find it signed by both authors.Facile is one of the most beautiful and influential books of the twentieth century, the very definition of a… Read More

Paris: Pierre Seghers and Imprimerie Union, 1953. Folded concertina, made up of three sheets assembled and attached to the back with strips of cloth. Original hangers attached to verso. With the publisher's original rhodoïd case. A gorgeous, fine copy, bright and fresh. Now housed in a custom clamshell box. Eluard wrote the poem during the German occupation of France in 1942; it was originally published in the clandestine book of poetry Poésie et vérité 1942, and later printed in leaflet form and parachuted over occupied territories by the thousands by the British Royal Air Force. Liberté became a symbol of the Résistance under the oppression of Vichy and the German occupation. Eluard himself said of his stirring ode to freedom, "I thought of revealing at the end the name of the woman I loved and for whom this poem was intended. But I quickly realized that the only word I had in mind was the word Liberté. Thus, the woman I loved embodied a desire greater than her. I confounded it with my most… Read More

[Firenze: Tip. Galileiana propr. Cappelli], n.d. [1912]. First edition. [1], 2-11, [12] pp. Original Florentine wallpaper sewn wrappers, printed label on front cover. Slight edgewear all around, otherwise an unusually bright and clean example of a fragile item normally found in much lesser condition. This copy with the publisher's imprint at foot of p. [12], Wilson notes that "most copies examined lack the imprint." Ownership signature of legendary bibliographer and bookman John Carter on the inside front cover. Now housed in a custom clamshell box. The art critic Henry McBride once perceptively observed that Gertrude Stein "collected geniuses rather than masterpieces," understanding that Stein's own genius lay in an almost unparalleled ability to spot other people's talent. The friendships which she formed with Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne and Hemingway in turn formed the raw material for her own art; "Pablo is doing abstract portraits in painting. I am trying to do abstract portraits in my medium,… Read More

Paris: [Les Presses du Montparnasse], 1923. First edition. [57] pp. Printed wrappers. Inevitable toning to leaves, else a fine copy of a fragile production. 180 copies were printed; this one of the 100 copies on vergé, unnumbered and unsigned. Frontispiece by Max Ernst, drypoint on chine, mounted, signed in the plate. This is generally considered to be the only drypoint Ernst executed in his career. Konnertz & Spies, Max Ernst, Books and Graphic Work, 5. Rainwater, Max Ernst, Beyond Surrealism, 16. Hugues & Poupard-Liessou, Max Ernst, Écrits & Oeuvre Gravé, 45. Spies & Leppien, Max Ernst, Das Graphische Werk, 9B. Rossier & Goerg, Max Ernst, Oeuvre Gravé, 4.

Lexington, KY: Gnomon Press, 1970. First edition. Brown cloth boards, paper spine label lettered in black, photograph mounted on front board. According to Jonathan Williams, from whose collection this copy came, one of fifteen copies bound in boards, signed by Meatyard on the half-title and by Wendell Berry at his introductory note. The first monograph on this major photographer, published only two years before his untimely death. See Birchfield, James D. (1992) "Gnomon Press and Jonathan Greene: Two Bibliographies," The Kentucky Review: Vol. 11: No. 2.

Paris: Editions du Carrefour, 1930. First edition. 237 pp. Original publisher's wrappers. Spine a little browned and creased, overall bright and fresh, an excellent copy. One of 370 copies on vélin pur-fil, of a total edition of 500 copies. Illustrated with ten full page heliogravures of photo montages by Cahun and her partner Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe). Preface by Pierre Mac Orlan. Jennifer Shaw writes of the book in her biography of Cahun, "... she was not interested in creating a hermetic exploration of her own self. She was interested in undermining conventional wisdoms, in making people think differently so that they would live differently: a formidable and ambitious project.... She searches for new ways to redefine relationships between self and other, masculine and feminine, art and the everyday, the ideal and the particular." Claude Cahun (1894-1954), named Lucy Schwob at birth, embraced gender fluidity and ambiguity decades before the advent of queer theory; as she wrote in Aveux… Read More

Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1931. First edition. No. 217 of 240 copies on Rives paper, of a total edition of 305. 13 original etchings by Pablo Picasso and 67 wood engravings after drawings by the artist, engraved by George Aubert. Bound in gray calf by Renée Haas and collaborators Renaud Vernier and Claude Ribal. Front and back covers with a black and gray inlaid checkerboard pattern with alternating gold squares mounted, each cover with inlaid red line vertically zigzagging with white mirrored line throughout, lettered in gilt on the spine; all edges gilt; red suede doublures, gray suede endleaves; morocco-tipped slipcase with suede-lined chemise, spine mirroring volume spine text. Original wrappers bound in. An excellent copy. The binding, dated 2008, is the work of three hands: the designer Renée Haas, and Renaud Vernier and Claude Ribal, executors of the binding. According to the Pierre Bergé catalogue description of the binding on Matisse's Jazz executed by the same trio in 1983, "Renée Haas… Read More

[Paris]: [Maurice Sachs and Jacques Bonjean], 1928. First edition. [6], 7-80, [6] pp. Quarto folded wrappers, title and monogram printed on front cover. Printed on Montval laid paper, handmade by Gaspard Maillol, by Ducros et Colas, printers, Paris. Slightest occasional spotting to leaves, still a fine copy, housed in a chemise and slipcase. One of 31 numbered copies printed, of which ten were reserved for the author. The true and extremely rare first edition of one of Cocteau's most extraordinary and emblematic works. Published anonymously, it is the first time Cocteau directly wrote on the subject of homosexuality- as Claude Arnaud notes in his definitive biography, "this indirect praising of homosexual love, experienced as 'one of the most mysterious workings of the divine masterpiece,' was the kind of work that might once have helped the adolescent Cocteau to rise above opprobrium and secure his self-esteem." Cocteau never allowed his name to be directly attributed to the text of this book,… Read More

Berlin, 1921. First edition, number 79 of 200 numbered copies. Ten copper engravings (each approximately 2 ½ x 3 ½ inches), each signed by the artist (one signed upside-down on the top edge), each mounted and housed in an individual passepartout, titled on the exterior in pencil, with a leaf of patterned glassine laid in. The whole housed in a folding portfolio of half vellum over patterned paper boards, with vellum tabs. With the original publisher's cardboard slipcase, numbered 79 on the exterior. Some general age-toning, glassine leaves a bit darkened. The slipcase shows a bit of wear. Overall an excellent copy. Eddy Smith (1895-1957) was active during the Weimar era and associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit movement. Known as a painter, illustrator (of Baudelaire, Villon, and others), and printmaker, this portfolio and Die Schwarze Mappe (1924) represent the height of his artistry. While Die Schwarze Mappe is more focused on social critique, the precise and highly detailed engravings in this… Read More

London: London Gallery Editions, 1939. First edition. Publisher's wood-grain boards, lettered on the front board and spine (design by Hans Bellmer). Photographic endpapers. Photomontage frontispiece; 37 black and white photographs and a drawing, text in black and red. Some minor foxing to boards, slight chipping to head of spine. One of 500 numbered copies, this is number 132 (H.C.). Originally created as a unique visual diary dedicated by Penrose to Lee Miller as a souvenir of their travels through the Balkans in 1938. The following year, Penrose created this edition: "I amused myself further by finding a friendly printer who happily put at my disposal his entire stock of type which I used freely in unconventional lay-outs to emphasise what I had to say." In his afterword to the Getty facsimile published in 2003, curator Weston Naef said of it, "the 1939 edition of The Road Is Wider Than Long occupies an unheralded place in the history of early modern artists' books. It is one of the few books by a… Read More