Voyage au bout de la nuit
Paris, Denoël et Steele, 1932.
1 vol. (110 x 180 mm) of 623 p. Half havana morocco with corners, spine with raised bands, decorated, gilt title, top edge gilt, original wrappers and spine preserved (contemporary binding).
First edition.
One of [150] copies on alfa paper (no. 43).
One of [150] copies on alfa paper (no. 43).
Even before its success, critics as a whole had already reacted to this “book of genius, but criminal,” as Paul Valéry put it. The controversy intensified with the 1932 Goncourt affair. “M. Céline has missed the Goncourt prize,” wrote Georges Bernanos. “So much the better for M. Céline. We have not seen, and — thank God — shall never see, M. Céline crowned by M. Gaston Chérau, a sub-prefectural Maupassant.” Bernanos thus paid tribute to the author who had scandalized “those whom the spectacle of the poor man’s solitude, of his terrifying exile, drives to despair rather than compassion — we mean to every boldness, every anger, every fury of compassion.”
Copies remaining in wrappers or in a strictly contemporary binding, as here, are rare.
#29195
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