L’Homme pressé
One of the first 8 copies on Japanese paper (A).
Inscribed and signed by Michel Déon, who notes on the dedication leaf to Hélène Morand that he “would have liked to have thought of this exquisite dedication himself.”
Published in 1941, L’Homme pressé is one of Paul Morand’s great novels, and probably the one whose title has become most lastingly identified with his legend. Pierre Niox, a collector, art lover and a man incapable of remaining still, moves through the world as he moves through his own existence: too fast, always too late, consumed by a fever of speed that ultimately becomes a form of destiny — the impossibility of slowing down, one of the great modern afflictions.
A novel of impatience, possession and amorous failure, L’Homme pressé gave Morand one of his finest literary alter egos.
A magnificent deluxe copy, the very first of them, lettered A: it comes from the library of Michel Déon, who had received it from Claude Gallimard.
It was as a teenager, among the books inherited from his father, that Michel Déon discovered Paul Morand and developed a passion for the writer, whom he met in 1947 in Lausanne. A friendship then grew between them that never wavered until Morand’s death in 1976, and of which many traces survive in the Correspondance Morand-Chardonne, published by Gallimard in 2014.
To this literary and personal closeness, Déon added a genuine bibliophilic passion. For nearly half a century, he worked to assemble Morand’s books and texts, from first editions and deluxe printings to periodical publications, having his copies bound or cased by some of the finest book craftsmen — in this instance by Jacqueline Liekens. Michel Déon ultimately entrusted our Toulouse colleague Éric Castéran with the task of drawing up the catalogue raisonné of this collection and dispersing it. The present copy appeared there at the time, without an inscription.
Acquired by someone close to Déon, the book later passed back into the hands of the man who had kept it for so long: Michel Déon then inscribed it with his own name by way of a dedication. A singular return to sender, which adds one final chapter to the remarkable history of this copy: Claude Gallimard, Michel Déon, his Morand library, and then, after its dispersal, Déon once again.
Also known on this paper are the copies from the library of the Château de Tournay (Christie’s, June 2026, no. 182) and from that of Gabriel Bounoure (Artcurial, December 2009, no. 437).
Extremely rare.