Raboliot

Prix Goncourt, 1925. In his library, Maurice Genevoix kept a copy of nearly every paper issue of the first edition of Raboliot (missing only one of the 56 copies on Hollande): one of 7 copies on China paper, one of 13 on Japanese paper, one of 162 on pur fil, and a press copy on alfa paper. For these copies — except for the ordinary printing — two covers were printed, one illustrated with a woodcut by Gérard Cochet, the other by André Deslignères.

On this last point, the matter is often poorly documented: this is indeed André Deslignères, the engraver born in the Nièvre — like Genevoix — who would go on to illustrate the 1926 edition of Rémi des Rauches. The artist responsible for the woodcut on Raboliot is often wrongly identified as Lucien Deslinières or Auguste Deslinières, who in fact have no connection with this engraving, due to the way the name was spelled on the cover of Raboliot. This erroneous spelling, which recurs throughout later printings, may be explained by Deslignères’s wish to conceal his identity — for contractual or legal reasons. In any case, it is not a misprint unique to the first printing. His first work as an engraver was for the first book by Paul Éluard, Le Devoir et l’Inquiétude, published in 1918.

The copy on Japanese paper was entrusted to Grégoire Levitzky, to be luxuriously bound with various documents; the pur fil copy was bound by Genevoix’s regular binder; the copy on China paper and this one on alfa were kept in wrappers. The China-paper copy having since been bound by Renaud Vernier, this copy of Raboliot is the only one surviving in wrappers among the first-edition copies kept by Genevoix.

A good copy, despite a tear to the spine.

From the library of Maurice Genevoix, at “Les Vernelles,” with bookplate.