Birot, Pierre-Albert

Paris. No. 1. Novembre, 1924. [all published]

Paris: est en vente chez Jean Budry, 1924. First edition. [8] pp. Original blue publisher’s printed sewn paper wrappers, titles in gilt to front cover, advertisements in black to interior of rear cover. The fragile single stitch has come undone, easily repaired professionally.

Pierre Albert-Birot’s important and very scarce single issue Apollinairean Surrealist review. The journal was issued the month after the publication of the first Apollinairean Surrealist manifesto (published on October 1st by Yvan Goll) and the first Bretonian Surrealist manifesto (published on October 15th). Paris took the side of the Apollinairean Surrealists and opens with Roch Grey’s analysis and defense of Apollinaire, his position and most crucially his definition of the term he had coined originally. Her contribution is dated ‘Paris le 19 Octobre 1924,’ four days after the publication of Breton’s manifesto. Also included are three poems by Pierre Albert-Birot, one of which, “Théâtre,” is present also as a single loose sheet.

Guillaume Apollinaire had first made use of the neologism ‘sur-réalisme’ in the program notes to Erik Satie's 1916 ballet Parade before he subtitled his own drama Les Mamelles de Tirésias “drame Surréaliste” in 1917. Despite Apollinaire’s coinage, the word “surréaliste” did not enter common usage until the 1920s and the publication of the various Surrealist manifestoes in 1924, at which point intellectual controversy debated the definition of the word, whether Apollinaire was a Surrealist, the manner in which Surrealism differed from his Surrealism and so on. Breton and his camp took the view that Surrealism was new and utterly different to anything previous, while his opponents, among them Yvan Goll, Paul Dermée and Pierre Albert-Birot, maintained that a school of Surrealism had existed since Apollinaire’s coinage of the term. Ultimately it was Breton’s conceptualization which won the day: Durozoi says, “The scope of the surrealist agenda—nothing less than altering one’s conception of humankind and of thought—was such that the publication of the manifesto sufficed for Goll and Dermée’s endeavors to seem like simple literary replastering, and they immediately suffered the consequences: from October 1924, both the press and the public considered that “surrealism” referred to the movement led by Breton alone, even if some people… continued to believe that Breton was making too much use of a term that belonged to Apollinaire.” As Mark Polizzotti notes, “Quite simply, Breton had outmaneuvered his predecessors: though his language and tone fully befitted his esoteric message, he nonetheless retained a patina of discursive, almost scientific objectivity that made the Manifesto accessible to a broader audience…”

Pierre Albert-Birot’s poem “Théâtre” is laid in alongside its printed version in the journal in matching format, dimensions and typography, as a loose sheet of thin tan unwatermarked wove paper, possibly as a proof or for separate distribution. OCLC locates two copies in the US, Beinecke and Lilly. Item #2607

Price: $2,850.00