La Banlieue de Paris. Texte de Blaise Cendrars sur 130 Photos de Robert Doisneau.

8vo. (240 x 180 mm). pp. 56, 135, (4). Original publisher's deluxe pinkish silk moire cloth, title gilt to upper board and spine, monochrome pictorial endpapers, later black morocco-backed black cloth box. Illustrated with 130 monochrome reproduction photographs printed in heliogravure by Robert Doisneau.

One of 30 edition de tete copies numbered in Roman numerals in the deluxe binding and with a signed presentation from Cendrars in black ink to the half-title: 'a Mme. M. Ducret, ce petit / guide pour mieux se perdre / dans / LA BANLIEUE DE PARIS [printed half-title] / Blaise Cendrars'.This first edition or 'edition pre-originale' was printed in Switzerland on 'papier helio blanc sans pate de bois des papeteries de Landquart' in an edition of 4,300 numbered copies and was issued in a plain binding of cream boards without dust-jacket. An additional thirty copies (as here) were numbered in Roman numerals and issued in a deluxe binding of pinkish silk cloth reserved for 'les animateurs du Guilde du Livre'. The Seghers edition, famous for its dust-jacket, was issued later the same year.Also included, loosely inserted, are an additional suite of all of Doisneau's illustrations (unbound gatherings for the publication) and three issues of the Bulletin Mensuel of the Guilde du Livre, for November 1949, March 1950 and October 1950. The issue for November 1949 with its cover image of Blaise Cendrars by Dosneau features a preview of La Banlieue de Paris and it is listed for sale at a price of 10 Fr.; by the issue for October 1950 the entire edition of 4,300 pre-publication copies was sold and the book is no longer offered in the list of publications of La Guilde du Livre.'Doisneau's best book, characteristically humane, captured the postwar suburbs of Paris just before they changed beyond recognition from spirited working-class neighbourhoods to the urban wasteland that architects and planners created from the 1960s onwards.' (Parr & Badger).[Parr/Badger I, 201].

Artikel-Nr.: 40428