Les Pas perdus

In February 1924, Éditions Gallimard published, in their new series “Les Documents bleus,” a collection of twenty-four articles by André Breton entitled Les Pas perdus, written between 1917 (“Guillaume Apollinaire”) and 1923 (“La confession dédaigneuse”): Alfred Jarry, Guillaume Apollinaire, Dada, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Jacques Vaché, Sigmund Freud and Francis Picabia all feature. The collection marks the first publication of a book by Breton with a major publisher, and with Gallimard in particular.

A precious copy belonging to André Breton. It was on Paul Valéry’s recommendation that Gaston Gallimard, in 1920, entrusted the then little-known twenty-four-year-old poet with some bread-and-butter work, such as correcting proofs for À la recherche du temps perdu. More importantly, he opened the doors of La Nouvelle Revue française to Breton for studies on Les Chants de Maldoror, Dada and Gaspard de la nuit — three articles that would later find their place in Les Pas perdus. The young Dadaist troublemakers held no fears for Gaston Gallimard: he had already signed Aragon (in 1921, for Anicet) and agreed to distribute the review Littérature, then Clair de terre, a collection of poems and dream narratives published at Breton’s own expense in 1923.

From the libraries of André Breton (invisible-ink stamp “Calmels-Cohen André Breton 42 rue Fontaine,” Breton sale, Paris, I, April 7, 2003, lot 123) and André Guichard (Paris, Christie’s, 2024, no. 33).