L’Église

Name: L'Église
SKU: 18231
Author: Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Paris, Éditions Denoël & Steele, 1933.

1 vol. (115 x 185 mm) of 242 p. and [2] f. Natural calf, mosaic decoration in red box calf on the covers depicting a Christian cross, smooth spine, title gilt in red Oeser leather, red box-calf doublures, red velvet endleaves, original wrappers and spine preserved, box (binding signed Nobuko Kiyomiya, 2009).

First edition.

Signed presentation inscription: “à M. Bonabel, bien amicalement, LF Destouches.”

L’Église is the only play Céline ever wrote and published. It was composed as early as 1926, with a protagonist named Doctor Bardamu, in whom all the themes of Voyage au bout de la nuit already appear. It is from L’Église that Sartre borrowed the famous line spoken by Yudenzsweck about Bardamu — “He is a person of no collective importance, just an individual” — which he placed as the epigraph to La Nausée.

A distinguished provenance: this copy was presented to Charles Bonabel, Céline’s record-dealer neighbor on the rue de l’Odéon and adoptive father of Éliane Bonabel, Céline’s young protégée. Céline and the Bonabel family remained genuinely close throughout his life, and they were among the first French visitors to see him when he was imprisoned in Denmark in 1946.

A delicate natural calf binding by Nobuko Kiyomiya.

#18231

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