Special printing of 20 réimposé copies on vélin d'Arches, reserved for “Les XX” and signed by the author (no. 2).
This printing on vélin d'Arches, distinct from the deluxe issue of the Fayard edition (20 copies on Hollande paper), was reserved for the bibliophile society Les XX; it contains a double wrapper, the Fayard wrapper and the one for Les XX.
Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1915, Gaspard is one of the earliest literary accounts of the Great War.
On 31 October 1914, the members of the Académie Goncourt met for the first time at the restaurant Drouant, place Gaillon. With the outcome of the war still highly uncertain, the academicians decided not to award their prize that year, planning instead to award two the following year. The double award would in fact only take place in 1916, and in December 1915, “in order to allow young authors who had novels in press or under consideration at the start of the war to take part in the competition,” a single prize was awarded.
It was awarded, for the first time since the creation of the Goncourt in 1903, unanimously, to Gaspard by René Benjamin. Mobilized at the outbreak of the conflict — at the age of twenty-nine — Benjamin gives here a chronicle of barracks and front-line life through the character of Gaspard, a boastful, wisecracking and resourceful Parisian meant to embody the French poilu. Unlike other, darker publications, Gaspard stands out for its lively, satirical tone, exposing the absurdities of military hierarchy.
Among the dozens of books published from 1915 onward on the theme of the emerging conflict, Gaspard is above all the first and only true novel: the book was a great success on publication and, bolstered by the Prix Goncourt, quickly reached its hundredth edition. According to Norton Cru, Gaspard was the favorite book “of a public kept in ignorance of the military situation by that strict, uncompromising early censorship. Had it appeared a year later, its success would have been doubtful; two years later, it would have gone unnoticed. On one point Gaspard is truer than Le Feu: the Parisian hero alone speaks slang, a legitimate slang, taken from life […]. This praise I give the author proves his talent for observing people’s speech.”
This episode opens a particular period in the history of the Goncourt: in 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918, all five prizes were awarded to combatants and their more or less fictionalized accounts of the front. This reflects both the appeal of war narratives and publishers’ determination — even when motivated by commercial reasons — to document these years of conflict through literature.
René Benjamin was, in 1938, the first Prix Goncourt laureate to join the jury.
Jean Norton Cru, Témoins, 567; Talvart I, 355.