First edition: one of 340 numbered copies, of which this is one of 300 on Alfama.

With a signed presentation inscription on half-title: ‘A Mr et Mme André Pieyre de Mandiargues. En toute poésie et bien cordialement E. Jabès. Avril 1955’. The writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues (1909-1991) and his Italian wife the artist Bona de Mandiargues (1926-2000, née Tibertelli, niece of Filippo de Pisis) were prominent figures in post-war avant-garde Paris. ‘Jabès ended the days before his forced exile from Egypt by editing “Le Chemin des Sources,” a series of texts by Gabriel Bounoure, Jean Grenier, and René Char. He commissioned devices for the series and colophon of his slim brown-wrappered pamphlets “du peintre Bona”, theyouthful Bona Pieyre de Mandiargues’ (Stoddard, p. 7).

Stoddard, Edmond Jabès in Bibliography, 10.

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