Moulin premier
One of 20 deluxe copies on Arches paper, this copy hors commerce.
Signed presentation inscription: “à Roger Bonon avec les sentiments amicaux de René Char.”
Composed as early as 1935, René Char delayed publication of the text in order to deepen his reflection and to allow Guy Lévis Mano to print it. His correspondence with the publisher shows Char supervising the making of the book from a distance, as does his exchange with Lévis Mano’s assistant, Roger Bonon, who sent the poet a further batch of proofs of Moulin premier in October 1936, along with subscription forms and the cover design, hoping to find him “in better health” (Char had suffered a serious case of septicemia that summer).
Paul Éluard oversaw the production on the spot, and his financial support allowed Char to complete the project: “What a job this little book has cost me. Nothing, truly nothing, has been left to chance…” (letter to Gilbert Lély, 1 February 1937). The stakes were considerable: with Moulin premier, Char established a new poetics and broke with his Surrealist period, which he later described as a temporary lodging in the poem “Commune présence.” Le Trousseau de Moulin premier, published in 2009 (Éditions de la Table Ronde), which recounts the genesis of the text, is an indispensable companion to it.
A precious copy belonging to the master typographer Roger Bonon, Guy Lévis Mano’s collaborator. Bonon joined him in 1934, when Lévis Mano took over the management of the “Librairie 79,” avenue de Ségur. There Lévis Mano had premises large enough to install a larger press than the one in his own room, where until then he had produced all his printing alone. The following year he acquired a treadle-operated Minerva press, bought from Nancy Cunard, who had ceased operations with The Hours Press in 1931.
With this new equipment, he produced more carefully made editions, among them Moulin premier, published with the financial support of Paul Éluard and the assistance of Roger Bonon.
In September 1939, the two typographers were called up and the workshop was closed. Bonon never returned to it, having been lost at sea during the Battle of Dunkirk; René Char later dedicated “Éléments,” one of the poems in Seuls demeurent, to him.
A very fine copy with a touching provenance.
From the library of the Genevan physician Christos Karagevrekis, who also commissioned this binding.
Antoine Coron, G.L.M., 120.