Histoire d’O

Sceaux, Pauvert, (June) 1954.
1 vol. (120 x 185 mm) of 245 p. and [2] f. Paperback, under double cover, uncut (box by Julie Nadot).

First edition.
One of the first 20 copies on Arches paper (No. X).
Our copy is indeed complete with the vignette drawn and engraved in sanguine by Hans Bellmer.
It is only present in these 20 deluxe copies and half of the copies on vergé paper (i.e. about 250 copies).

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

We owe it to the memoirs of Jean-Jacques Pauvert to learn more about the genesis, both literary and editorial, of this now classic of erotic literature. Dominique Aury, alias Pauline Réage, described it in Une fille amoureuse, for the publisher, and fifteen years after the novel: “A girl in love once said to the man she loved (Jean Paulhan in this case): I too could write stories like the ones you like… “You believe me?” he replied. […] One evening, after this ‘You believe me?’, this girl, instead of picking up a book before going to sleep, lying on her left side, a indeed black pencil in her right hand, began to write the story she had promised […] Then ten pages, five pages, chapters or fragments of chapters, she put them in an envelope addressed to a poste restante”. Aury submitted her text to the Gallimard reading committee, who refused it; Paulhan proposed it to Jean-Jacques Pauvert, asking him for a preface, which Paulhan delivered under the title ‘Happiness in Slavery’ that opens the novel.

A fine copy belonging to Régine Deforges, who was the mistress of Jean-Jacques Pauvert, the man who introduced her to publishing and opened up his world to her. Their first meeting was at the Café de Flore in Paris. “They immediately started talking about Sade, one of Pauvert’s favorite authors, whom she also read, as well as de Bataille and Boris Vian. Pauvert, then, fascinated her, and they saw each other often. She remembers that she enjoyed the time she spent with him, those long lunches, without realizing that he was ‘courting her, because he was a married man’ – was she still naive? They became lovers, but he did not leave his wife. And one day, she wrote about it in L’Enfant du 15 août, she suddenly ‘fell out of love’. But they had a daughter together, Camille […] It was also Jean-Jacques Pauvert who enabled Régine Deforges to meet Dominique Aury a few years later“ (”Régine Deforges l’insolente”, by Josyane Savigneau, Le Temps, April 4, 2014).

Régine Deforges had read the book in 1954 and had been fascinated by its audacity; the two women would subsequently remain close friends until Dominique Aury’s death in 1998. In 2004, Deforges explained the impact the book had had on her fifty years earlier: “I read Story of O shortly after it was published and it came as a shock to the young woman I was at the time. Subsequently, I reread this novel almost every year for ten years, then two or three more times since, discovering things on these new readings that had escaped me. I remember that at the time, I didn’t understand anything about O. Her submission to her lover’s desires was unbearable to me: it took my being in love, too, for me to understand how far one could go for the love of a man. So when Jean-Jacques Pauvert suggested I meet this legendary author, I accepted with joy and a certain amount of apprehension. From our first meeting, I was charmed by Dominique Aury, by her kindness and her simplicity. I was surprised that she was so far removed from the idea I had of a writer who had written such a disturbing book […]. Over the years, our friendship grew and she agreed to answer my questions about the origin of Story of O and why she had written it; this resulted in She told me O, a book dear to my heart. For many hours, she answered my questions, hiding nothing of her fantasies or those of the lover for whom she had written this book, which she knew would disturb and perhaps frighten him. “I wanted him to love me in spite of that,” she told me with that pride in submission that made her resemble her heroine […] Story of O had a major impact on my generation and those that followed, which we realized long afterwards: a woman dared to express her most secret desires and freed us from the shame attached to their realization.”

It was Pauvert who encouraged her to set up a publishing house, in 1967, L’Or du temps, in homage to André Breton’s phrase: “I seek the gold of time”.

Régine Deforges also owned the current edition of Histoire d’O – one of the copies on vergé – with a dedication by Pauline Réage made at the end of the 1970s, when the two women met (Régine Deforges Collection, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, February 2015, no. 194). The large paper, meanwhile, remained in the Deforges estate.

A very beautiful and remarkable example, preserved in a case by Julie Nadot, with great delicacy and accuracy.

From the library of Régine Deforges (ex-libris).