1941 Rare First Edition - LE CRÈVE-COEUR by Louis ARAGON - E.O. Limited to 2150 copies

 

(Description)

Author : Louis ARAGON
Title : LE CRÈVE-COEUR
Language : Text in French
Publisher : Paris, Gallimard (NRF), Collection "Métamorphoses", XI., 1941. First Edition. Limited to 2150 copies on Chataignier paper.
Size : 8 "X 6 "
Pages : 72 pages
Binding : Good softcover binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn, scuffed and chipped) under a removable protective mylar cover
Content : Very good content (bright, tight and clean)

Estimate : (USD 100 - USD 150)

The book : Rare original limited (2150 copies) first edition of Aragon's famous  poetry book " Le crève-coeur" first published by Gallimard in 1941 while the French Resistance is growing under the Vichy régime. 

The Crève-coeur brings together the 22 poems and the essay "La Rime en 1940" written by Aragon from October 1939 to October 1940. The work can be divided into two parts:
The first part includes the 13 poems written until May 10, 1940, so during the "drôle de guerre".
The second part includes the 9 poems written after May 10, 1940; Four of them are devoted to the months of May and June, and therefore to the French countryside, while the five remaining poems are devoted to the months immediately following the armistice.

The book was planned to appear in the "Blanche" Collection of Gallimard with an unlimited edition. Gaston Gallimard himself wrote to Aragon on January 19, 1941 :
"Paulhan handed me your collection of poems, and he told you in Carcassonne how much I had been moved by those whom I had read then, and I told him that I preferred to publish them in the "Blanche" collection rather than in the Metamorphoses collection so as not to limit the circulation. "
On December 8, 1941 Aragon recalled this promise by writing to Jean and Germaine Paulhan:
"But it was understood with you and with Gaston that the Crève-Coeur would pass as it is in the "Blanche" collection."

But in fact, the book appeared on April 25, 1941 in the "Metamorphoses" Collection, which came down to a limited 2150 copy edition:
"This first edition, limited to two thousand one hundred and fifty copies on chestnut paper, of which 150 are copies of the press, as evidenced by the declaration for legal deposit, is the original edition of this book."

There was a reprint on January 20, 1942 in France (Leuilliot, pp. 129, note 3) and several re-editions abroad...

 The author : Louis Aragon (3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet, who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France, who co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review Littérature. He was also a novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.