Eluard, Paul

Jeux Vagues [de] la Poupée. Quatorze Poemes. Deux Photos de Hans Bellmer.

Paris: [Éditions de la revue Messages], 1939. First edition. [8] pp (including covers). Green printed wrappers, not stapled. Some handling wear, old pressed mark in lower corner.

Originally intended to be inserted in issue 2 of the journal Messages. Very few actual offprints, including this one, were reprinted separately, which do not bear traces of staples. The first conception of Eluard’s doll poems, which accompanied Bellmer’s iconic photographs. At the end, we find this printed announcement: “Pour illustrer quatorze photographies de Hans Bellmer. À paraître aux Éditions des Cahiers d’Art.” This edition never appeared. Eluard published a second edition of his poems in 1942, in Le Livre Ouvert, and then in 1949 with Bellmer’s photographs under the title Les Jeux de la poupée.

“Paul Éluard, among the surrealists, was particularly enthusiastic about the doll. He grasped its full value as a provocation, a reconquest, and a fulfillment, and through his poem, brought the virtue of the word to what was merely an image.” (Éluard, Oeuvres complètes I, Pléiade, p. 1567). See also Éluard, Oeuvres completes II, Pléiade, p. 1332 (“Sur papier vert pâle, tirage destiné à être encarté, dans le numéro 2 de la revue Messages, 1939. Un petit nombre d’exemplaires non justifiés ont été réservés pour être offerts séparément”). OCLC locates four copies. Item #2566

Price: $750.00