Description

FIRST EDITION.
ONE OF 792 NUMBERED COPIES ON PUR-FIL (after 108 reprinted copies), this one of 30 copies reserved for the author.

AUTOGRAPHIC SENTENCE SIGNED to the critic and biographer G. Jean-Aubry, one of Larbaud's best friends :

"to Jean Aubry
friendly remembrance
Valéry Larbaud

Jean Aubry has interspersed this copy with numerous notes relating to the writing of the work (2 pages), keys to readings (3 pages), passages from the manuscript that do not appear in the edition (2 pages); he has pasted descriptions of other copies from antiquarian booksellers' catalogues onto the endpapers.

According to Frida Weissman, from the extensive correspondence published by Gallimard, "the letters that seemed to us the richest in information about Larbaud's work, the most revealing of his thoughts as a writer in full possession of his art, are those exchanged with his friend - the best, no doubt, of the mature years - and biographer, G. Jean-Aubry."
"The deep and lively friendship between Larbaud and Jean-Aubry was based on mutual appreciation, and reinforced by their literary tastes and choices. Jean-Aubry greatly admired his friend's work and felt it was his duty to make it known, while Larbaud respected Jean-Aubry's erudition, his rigour in his work and his intellectual integrity. Both held the profession of writer and translator in high esteem."

During the last fifteen years of Valery Larbaud's life - after he was struck down by a stroke that left him hemiplegic and almost completely aphasic until his death in 1957 - Jean-Aubry "kept himself busy with his work".took care of Larbaud's literary interests with unparalleled devotion".

Nice provenance.