Previously unpublished preface by the author for Le Voyage d'Urien and previously unpublished postface for Paludes.
One of 12 copies on Hollande paper (no. 14).
This edition brings together for the first time Le Voyage d’Urien and Paludes, two essential books of the young Gide, both originally published by the Librairie de l’Art indépendant, Edmond Bailly: Le Voyage d’Urien in 1893, with lithographs by Maurice Denis, then Paludes in 1895. By reissuing them together at the Mercure de France, Gide offers a kind of summation of his Symbolist period, on the eve of the great inward shift of Les Nourritures terrestres, published the following year.
Together the two texts form the culmination of Gide’s Symbolist period: an inner voyage in the first, a motionless voyage in the second. From the maritime adventure of Voyage au Spietzberg — the original title of Urien — to Tityrus at his writing table, the two narratives move toward a paradoxical stripping-away: heroic travel and ironic stillness answer one another as two forms of the same question — how to escape oneself, how to act, how to avoid becoming mired in already-established literary and moral forms? The postface answers this, directly preparing the way into Les Nourritures terrestres.
A fine copy in wrappers, in rare condition.
Small loss to the corner of the cover.