One of 35 copies on vélin pur fil (no. XXV) — after 17 hors commerce copies on alfa paper under Ingres wrappers.
This edition follows the one published more than forty years earlier, in 1906, printed in 150 copies by the Éditions de la Bibliothèque de l’Occident and distributed to Claudel’s circle of friends. At the time serving as ambassador, Claudel did not wish to see the play staged or more widely distributed.
It was Rosalie Vetch, Claudel’s great love in his youth, who inspired the character of Ysé (and, some years later, Prouhèze in Le Soulier de satin); she is buried at Vézelay, where her tomb bears this line by the poet: “Seule la rose est assez fragile pour exprimer l’éternité” (from Cent phrases pour éventails).
The play was finally staged forty-two years later, in a production directed by Jean-Louis Barrault; the premiere took place on 16 December 1948 at the Théâtre Marigny, and this edition reproduces the definitive text supplied by Claudel for that first staging. A revised, though not yet definitive, edition had appeared in January 1948 from the Mercure de France.
A fine copy, beautifully bound.