Vol de nuit
One of 109 réimposé copies reserved for the bibliophiles of the N. R. F., on vergé paper (no. LXXVII). It was printed for Léon Netter (1897–1987), a well-known lawyer and special assignee at the Ministry of Finance.
“It is beautiful to leave at night. You pull back the throttle, facing South, and ten seconds later the landscape is reversed, facing North. The city is nothing more than a seabed.” In 1929, having become director of operations for the company Aeroposta Argentina, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was tasked with opening a route to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, some 2,500 kilometers south of Buenos Aires. The inaugural marathon flight of more than eighteen hours — much of it flown in darkness — and the anxiety of those left on the ground would be transfigured by the poetry of this book.
Two years after the publication of Courrier Sud (Southern Mail), it confirmed the author’s literary talent, his humanism, and his passion for distant lands and for the men who explore and inhabit them.
The book, prefaced by André Gide, was awarded the Prix Femina.
A fine copy.