Les Soliloques du Pauvre (Signed)
With Rare Color Lithographs Signed by Sunyer (1 of 8 Suites)
By Jehan Rictus. [Paris]: Chez l'Auteur, 1897. Limited 1st edition. No. 172 of 500 copies on vellum paper. Issued for subscribers, with two portraits by Théophile Steinlen. ***Signed by Rictus on the half-title page in 1921 for Marcel Quentin. There is also a laid-in letter from Rictus dated 1918 with wartime and literary content.Poems on the plight of the poor by Rictus (pseudonym of Gabriel Randon, 1867-1933.) Written in the common language of the streets and cafes of Paris amid the widening social disparities of the Belle Époque at the close of the 19th century. This copy is bound with:
Huit Lithographies en Couleurs de Sunyer pour Les Soliloques du Pauvre de Jehan Rictus. Eight colored lithographs by [Joaquim] Sunyer. ***No. 4 of just 8 signed suites on Japan paper. Each lithograph with remarque and signed in pencil by Sunyer (1874-1956.) Important early work by the Catalan painter, created soon after his arrival in Paris as a young artist. Originally published separately in portfolio format by Pierre Duffau in 1897 and now quite scarce, especially in this small limitation. Uncommon thus bound together with the Soliloquies of the Poor. (The eight lithographs are interspersed throughout the poems.)
8vo. Approx. 9 x 6.5 inches (22.5 x 17 cm.) Half leather over marbled boards. Gilt-decorated spine and gilt top edge. Marbled endpapers. Original stiff felt covers bound in. Cover and frontispiece portraits of Rictus by Steinlen. 169, (5) pp., + the Sunyer lithographs and their limitation page. (Printed facsimile letter from Rictus on the recto, and limitation statement on the verso.) ***The laid-in, handwritten letter is dated 27 February 1918 and addressed to an unnamed friend. Rictus discusses the war, the trench journal Le Diable au Cor, and the importance of writers and soldier-poets expressing themselves "en langue populair parlee" (as Rictus himself did in the Soliloquies.) See images for both sides of the original letter. VG overall. Sound and securely bound. Moderate wear with sunning at the spine, as shown. Closed tear (1.5 inches) at the bottom of the half-title. Moderate age-toning internally. Sunyer lithographs are clean and unmarked.
A unique copy of the principal work by Rictus, with his signature, the original signed letter, and a desirable state of the signed Sunyer lithographs. (Just 10 suites were issued signed, out of the total edition of 200.)