Description

FIRST EDITION.
Current edition with mention of third edition.

Autograph signed letter to Janine Bouissounouse :

to Miss Janine Bouissounouse,
as a token of my gratitude
and my deepest sympathy,
Paul Éluard

Two handwritten copies of the poems, probably by Janine Bouissounouse, bear witness to her in-depth study of the collection.

A novelist, critic and journalist, Janine Bouissounouse was General Secretary of La revue du cinéma ; she first rubbed shoulders with the Philosophies before moving closer to the Surrealists. "An admirer of Eluard, she knows all his texts". She met him in November 1926, when a 'surrealist' dance performance at the Comédie des Champs Elysées aroused the ire of the 'true surrealists'. They interrupted the performance before being taken to the police station. (Vanoyeke, Violaine. Paul Éluard. The poet of freedom. Biography. 1995)
After the Second World War, Eluard was invited to Rome, where Janine Bouissounouse was living, to stay with her and enable her to make contact with the Communist and Socialist intelligentsia and the arts world, which was to have an impact on the rest of her journalistic and political career, establishing her role as a cultural mediator between France and Italy (Forlin, Olivier, French intellectuals and Italy, 1945-1955. L'Harmattan, 2006. pp.26-31)
Janine Bouissounous published several articles on her memories of Eluard, including When Paul Eluard told me his dreams  (Le Figaro Littérairen°1126, 13-19 November 1967, pp. 10-11).