L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU. NUMBERS 18 – 28. 1923 – 1925. A SUBSTANTIAL SEQUENTIAL RUN INCLUDING THE SCARCE SPECIAL EDITION.

Paris: Editions de L’Esprit Nouveau, 1923 – 1925

A sequential and substantial run of this important avant garde revue (edited by Paul Dermee and Michel Seuphor) bound together in a single period binding (cloth covered boards with embossed leather label on spine). 27 x 17.5cm, most numbers are unpaginated although most are approximatly 50 – 72pp. and volume 28 is, in fact, numbered 2320 to 2391.

Many important contributions by the major progressive literary figures of the time and there are many texts on important contemporaries such as Poe. Illustrated throughout with colour and b/w plates of architecture and art including many cubist works after Picasso and Leger (for example).

Particularly important here is issue nr 26 which was solely dedicated to the recently deceased figure of Guillaume Apollinaire with reproductions after drawings, watercolors, manuscripts and letters by the poet, seven portraits of him by Pablo Picasso and two by Louis Marcoussis (one of which is an original lithograph printed in red) + other related facsimile documents and photographs. The special number includes the poet’s short tale ‘La Plante’, correspondence and poems (reproduced in facsimile). Other texts by Celine Arnauld, Paul Dermee, Pierre-Albert Birot, Ivan Goll, Francis Picabia, Andre Salmon, Roch Grey, et. al. + letters to Apollinaire by Fernand Divoire, Picabia, et. al.. Alone the special number is a very scarce item but a complete run of 10 numbers is a significant find.

The original wrappers have not been retained within the binding and there is one (easily remedied) condition problem here in that the weight of the approx 750 pages bound together has caused the internal page block to fall and cleanly tear the binding down the marbled endpapers on the front side although the rear endpapers are still attached although only just – as are the laid in and bound in (here) various maps and fold out architectural documents at the back of the 10 volume run. Elsewhere the paper is browned and the odd page is slightly stressed again due to the weight of the internal page block but over all this is a very good+ run with the stated problems well within a paper conservator’s or binder’s ability to correct.

Price is for all ten numbers including the special number