Les Cahiers d’André Walter OEuvre posthume

“This book stood before me and blocked my view, to the point that I could not imagine ever getting past it. I could not consider it as the first of my career, but as a unique book, and I imagined nothing beyond it; it seemed to me that it must consume my very substance.” (Si le grain ne meurt, I, VIII).

A precious copy inscribed to Madeleine Rondeaux, his first cousin and future wife.

Gide had known Madeleine, three years his junior, since childhood, at Cuverville, the estate of his maternal uncle Émile Rondeaux, which she would inherit in 1890. At twenty, Gide wished to persuade his cousin to marry him, an offer she initially refused. Their affection was genuine, but without desire. Gide persisted, and in order to give substance to these “eternal engagements” later evoked in La Porte étroite, and to convince Madeleine, he wrote this barely disguised confession: André Walter, a chaste and pure hero, loves his cousin Emmanuelle but resists the temptations of the flesh. Gide and Madeleine married in October 1895, and their religious union at the temple of Étretat is described in L’Immoraliste.

“Immensely proud of his first book, André Gide gave and distributed numerous copies among his family and friends. His cousin Madeleine (for whom one of the China-paper copies of the Perrin edition had been intended) received another China-paper copy from the deluxe edition (the ‘no. 0,’ probably a supernumerary copy beyond the twenty announced), with the inscription ‘A Madeleine, André’ — a laconic sobriety that was to be the hallmark of the volumes the author gave to his youthful love. Another China-paper copy was given to the young poet Henri de Régnier.” (Nicolas Ducimetière, in his delightful Mélanges tirés d’une petite bibliothèque, online).

Copies in wrappers, with the original wove-paper cover, are particularly rare.
Scattered marginal foxing, and old restorations to the cover.