Forêt voisine
One of the first 10 copies on vergé de Hollande (no. 4).
An exceptional copy, adorned with 24 original watercolors by Maurice Asselin — the first signed and dated 1939 — drawn in the wide deckle-edge margins or within the text.
This edition builds on the first version published in 1931, an illustrated edition intended for bibliophiles and accompanied by etchings. Issued by Flammarion two years later, it represents the first appearance of the text in its definitive form.
Forêt voisine inaugurates, together with La Dernière Harde (1938) and La Forêt perdue (1967), a group of works often described by critics as Maurice Genevoix’s “roman-poèmes,” centered on the depiction of the natural world — particularly animal life — within a forest setting directly inspired by the Forêt d’Orléans: “The forest has always haunted the imagination of men; and men, in turn, have peopled it with their dreams, their terrors and their longings…”
A fine copy, magnificently enriched with 24 original watercolors placed in the margins.
At the front, two autograph notes by the artist appear: on the half-title leaf, “Dessins et aquarelles de Maurice Asselin,” and on the table of contents leaf, “Illustrations: page 24, St Denis de l’Hôtel, M. Genevoix’s home; page 225, the church tower of Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, where the action of Chapter XV takes place.”
A manuscript list, in the artist’s hand, gives the full list of illustrations.