Second Manifeste du Surréalisme
Paris: Éditions Kra, 1930. First edition. 103, [2] pp. Printed boards. Boards very slightly splayed; slight toning to spine; browning to extremities of front and rear endpapers; a bit of spotting to some leaves.
One of 50 Roman-numeraled copies, reserved for Librairie José Corti, of a total of 110 copies of the edition de tête. Frontispiece by Salvador Dali, colored in pochoir at the ateliers Jacomet, only present in the edition de tête copies. The printed boards appear to be the publisher’s, although most copies were issued in wrappers. Laid in is the priere d'inserer, the document announcing the publication, for March 1930, of the book, with texts by Roger Vitrac, Robert Desnos, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Georges Limbour, Jacques Baron. Written during a turbulent time in Breton’s life, "although the text's general thrust is towards philosophical optimism, there is no question that [it] is also the angriest and most bitter of Breton’s major works." Surrealism "was no longer a state of mind unto itself, but a moral imperative" (Polizzotti). Item #2647
Price: $3,500.00