Portrait of the author by Pablo Picasso as frontispiece.
Limited to 600 copies.
One of 25 deluxe copies — after a unique copy enriched with Picasso's original drawing and a manuscript by Éluard — reserved for the author and the publishers, lettered A to Z (this copy Q).
Signed presentation inscription: “To my best friend, René Char / Paul Éluard.”
A collection of forty-four poems assembled by George Reavey, with a preface by Herbert Read. The volume was published on the occasion of the First International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936, translated by Éluard’s English-speaking friends.
René Char had by then distanced himself from the Surrealist group, while his friendship with Paul Éluard had only grown stronger. Char had notably been Nusch’s witness at her wedding to Éluard in August 1934, and in the spring of 1936 returned to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to look after the family plasterworks. He fell seriously ill with septicemia and had to undergo a long convalescence, while Dépendance de l’adieu, with a drawing by Picasso, was due to appear in May.
It was Éluard who helped him prepare this edition — limited to only 70 copies in Guy Lévis-Mano’s “Repères” series — traveling there with Man Ray. The two men brought the material back to Paris for the publisher. A few months later, Éluard also contributed to the publication of Moulin premier, which Guy Lévis-Mano issued in December.
It was in this context that Thorns of Thunder appeared in London, the first comprehensive presentation of Éluard’s poetry to an English-speaking audience. The book accompanied the international dissemination of Surrealism, benefiting from the visibility offered by the London exhibition.
Around Éluard gathered Picasso, who created his portrait, Max Ernst, who designed the cover, Herbert Read, who wrote the preface, and several poets and writers responsible for the translations, among them the young Samuel Beckett. Beckett translated, among others, “Lady Love” [“L’Amoureuse”], from Capitale de la douleur.
The other translators were Denis Devlin, David Gascoyne, Eugene Jolas, Man Ray, George Reavey and Ruthven Todd.