Collection complète

Born in the wake of the “Quinzaine de la Pléiade” (established in 1958), the Albums are the hors commerce companion volumes offered by booksellers to loyal purchasers of three volumes of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Printed only once (approximately 40,000 copies), never reprinted or reissued, they form a reference biographical and iconographic series, richly illustrated (originally in black-and-white in-text illustrations, with color plates from 1992, then entirely in color), in the same format as the Pléiade volumes. Bound in leather, with gilt spine and red title-piece, on heavier paper for improved print quality. The protective covering evolved over time: acetate wrapper and cardboard slipcase until 1985 (with the exception of the Verlaine, in a fragile acetate slipcase), replaced by an acetate wrapper with a printed white slipcase, then a color slipcase from 1994 onward; half dust jackets appeared in 1971, allowing the binding to show through.

Prefigured by the Dictionnaire des auteurs de la Pléiade (1960) and the Anthologie sonore in 1961, the Albums truly began in 1962 and have never been devoted to living authors; beyond the bio-bibliographical narrative, they offer often unpublished iconography.

Within the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (782 titles published to date, for 242 authors), only Gide, Malraux, Claudel, Montherlant, Saint-John Perse, Julien Green, Yourcenar, Char, Gracq, Ionesco, Nathalie Sarraute, Kundera, Jean d’Ormesson and Philip Roth had their works published during their lifetimes. Hemingway was the first contemporary foreign author to enter the collection, followed by Kafka and Faulkner.

A magnificent collection, rigorously complete: original slipcases, acetate wrappers and dust jackets, all preserved in uniform brown cloth slipcases or boxes with title-pieces.

Of the utmost rarity in this condition.