[A unique copy of an unpublished collection of poems by Raymond Radiguet].
N.d. [between 1921 and 1923].
Large 8vo [269 x 170 mm] of 1 title-page, 23 ll. mounted on guards. The corrected proofs. Bound in red half-buckram, flat spine with gilt title.
A collection of corrected proofs of 16 poems by Raymond Radiguet, bearing numerous handwritten autograph corrections by the author’s hand.
It contains:
De son Amour noircir les murs,
Nymphe émue,
A une promeneuse nue,
Les fiancés de treize ans,
Que le coq agite sa crête,
Statue ou épouvantail,
Le prisonnier des mers,
L’ange,
Bouquet de flammes,
Le Rendez-vous solitaire,
L’Etoile de Vénus,
Histoire de France,
Elégie,
La Reine des Aulnes,
Un Cygne mort,
Le Vrai dieu de l’amour.
Raymond Radiguet was born in 1903 and he died at the age of 20 from a typhoid, in 1923. He was introduced very young to the press sphere, and met Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Max Jacob and Paul Morand. Le Diable au corps was published for the first time in 1923. The book achieved great success and caused a scandal. Radiguet only published another novel, Le Bal du comte d’Orgel, published soon after his death. He also left poems, tales and critical texts.
Raymond Radiguet published a first collection of poems entitled Les Joues en feu in 1920. In 1925, under that same title, another collection of “Poèmes anciens et poems inédits, 1917-1921” was published.
All his poems were written between 1917 and 1921, when Radiguet was aged from 14 to 18.
The earliest date from 1917-18 (Parc Saint-Maur), some of them were written in Piquey (Basin of Arcachon) in 1921, while he was starting the Diable au corps.
It’s in Piquey in September-October 1923, staggered by a mysterious need for order, that while he was finishing the Bal du comte d’Orgel, he classified his poems.
The present collection gathers poems still unpublished at the death of the young poet in 1923, but poems that will be published afterwards in the Feuilles libres, in the Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie française (Kra, 1924), or inserted in the 1925 edition of the Joues en feu, with numerous variants.
A title-page was especially printed with a composing stick for that copy of proofs corrected by the author himself which stipulates « Exemplaire unique d’un Recueil de Poèmes de Raymond Radiguet non publié » (= “A unique copy of a collection of unpublished poems by Raymond Radiguet”).
Many variants were operated between these corrected proofs of the poems and the final published versions of 1924 and 1925.
For example, the poem entitled « Que le coq agite sa crête » in our collection is entitled « Les Adieux du coq » in the edition of the Joues en feu of 1925, and entire verses of some of the poems were modified from one version to another.
These proofs of 16 poems by Raymond Radiguet were corrected by the author’s hand as entire verses added on these proofs appear on the final published versions of the poems.
This collection was probably composed by Radiguet during the summer of 1923, when he was trying to put his poems in order and to think of their potential publication.
A unique piece of great literary and bibliophilic value.
Provenance: J.S. Marchand (cat. 1936, n°283) and Albert Natural with their ex libris.
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