Belle de jour
One of 110 deluxe réimposé copies on vergé paper (no. XLV).
Accompanied by a contemporary print of the young Kessel, photographed facing the camera by Henri Martinie. [Paris, circa 1930]. 1 gelatin silver print (130 x 175 mm). Stamped “H. Martinie. Ses portraits. 19 rue de Penthièvre. Paris.”
Completed in Davos at the time of Sandi’s death, Belle de jour first appeared in serialized fragments beginning in November 1928 in the weekly Gringoire, whose literary direction had been entrusted to Joseph Kessel.
From its earliest instalments, the novel caused a scandal that greatly contributed to launching the magazine. Kessel responded in the preface to this edition: “To expose the drama of the soul and of the flesh without speaking as freely of one as of the other seems impossible to me […] one must know how to despise false modesty just as one disdains bad taste.”
In a letter to Gaston Gallimard, quoted by Yves Courrière, André Gide wrote that “this dissociation of carnal pleasure from emotional feeling, fairly common and always possible in a man, is extremely rare in a woman. Thank God!!! It is even rare, alas, for a woman to understand this in a man — at least the man she loves — and to admit it, and to understand that in a man it hardly matters. Whereas in her, what dreadful consequences!” Be that as it may, Belle de jour was an immediate and overwhelming success: 250,000 copies were sold before 1930 by Éditions Gallimard, not to mention Luis Buñuel’s film, which further added to its fame.
Restored wrappers, spine relined.