Raboliot

Published in the prestigious La Belle Édition bibliophile series, this Raboliot belongs to a set of six titles by Maurice Genevoix selected for their “naturalist” character. Each volume was entrusted to a different illustrator: Routes de l’aventure, with watercolors by Pierre-Eugène Clairin; La Boîte à pêche, with compositions by André Collot; La Dernière harde, with compositions and an etched frontispiece by Odette Denis; Rémi des Rauches, with watercolors by Jacques Thévenet; and Rroû, with illustrations by A. D. Steinlen — and this Raboliot, entrusted to the sensitive compositions of Paul Jarach.

The copy offered here was printed specially for Sylvie Genevoix and kept at Les Vernelles, the family home in the Sologne acquired by Maurice Genevoix after the success of Raboliot. Sylvie Genevoix was born there, grew up there, and there discovered her own relationship to nature and to writing. She evoked this house in a luminous preface to La maison de mon père:

“It was in his haven of ‘Les Vernelles,’ on a hillside overlooking the Loire, that the greater part of Maurice Genevoix’s life and writing unfolded, mirroring the river he watched from his study. It was in this nest of Les Vernelles that I was born, that I took my first steps, my hand in my father’s, that he taught me to speak, to look, and to marvel. […] I feel, toward my father and toward this house made in his image, indebted for so many unspeakable treasures, so many small nothings that enchant or soothe, that I can only be a modest spokesperson, a faithful and attentive witness trying to pass on and share a little of what he received.”

From the library of “Les Vernelles” (bookplate).