Le Trésor des contes

Le Trésor des contes is a collection of nearly a thousand tales gathered in the Auvergne by Henri Pourrat, edited and published in thirteen volumes between 1948 and 1962, the last of them posthumously.

Beginning in 1911, with the assistance of the ethnologist Arnold van Gennep, Pourrat collected everything he was told within a circle around Ambert, extending into the Monts du Forez and the isolated farms, houses and hamlets of the Livradois, which he visited on foot every afternoon. His aim, as a tireless walker, was to seek out the last keepers of this precious popular knowledge: tales of fairies, witches, horror, brigands, jests and miracles, all rooted in a deep respect for nature.

“As for the tales… is it enough merely to collect them, which is already no easy task? Nine times out of ten they are told flatly. He himself advised: the transcription must become a creation again. What else can supreme fidelity be called but art or poetry? And he wrote further: it is impossible not to touch these tales — given as they are, without salt or sage, they remain mere curiosities for specialists. And impossible to touch them — they do not belong to you, they are classics of the peasantry. For them to find their destiny, one must restore their sap, see them turn green again, crackling, rustling, in air that smells of broom and warm stone…”

A very fine and complete set; all the volumes, complete with their original slipcases, are protected in paper cases whose spines reproduce the designs of the illustrated boards.