Nadja

A landmark edition in the history of the Surrealist book, and specifically of Breton’s masterwork: in 1962–1963, Breton revisited Nadja and produced a version “revised” by himself, differing from the 1928 original, to which he added a new preface, “Pour en finir avec la description.”

In it, he clearly explains what he expects of his reader and sets out a simple pact from the outset: Nadja should not be read as reportage or confession, but as a poetic experience where the true and the marvelous meet, and where the photographs by Boiffard, Manuel and Man Ray are not illustrations in the classical sense, but evidence intended to convey “objective chance.”

This second edition corrects and reorganizes the 1928 book, amending certain passages, notably the overly “biographical” allusion to a night spent with Nadja, which Breton no longer wished to see evoked or even imagined: “the paths of knowledge pass only through the heart.”

André Breton’s personal copy, who also owned a second copy of this edition, on green paper.

Sale, André Breton (Paris, I, April 7, 2003, lot 230).