THE END OF THE WORLD
RUYRA, Joaquim and Carles FONTSERÈ, illustrator.
La fi del món a Girona.
Paris, [Gaston Hallépée], [31 July] 1946.
8vo, pp. 57, [1, blank], [2, colophon, blank]; with 13 chromolithographed illustrations in the text, followed by a suite of 12 original chromolithographs signed by the artist in pencil; very light offsetting from illustrations; otherwise a handsome, partially uncut copy in the original printed paper wrapper, housed in the publisher’s blue and red cloth chemise and matching slipcase; slipcase sunned, with wear to corners and small abrasion at base; loosely inserted prospectus (no. 52 of 200) by Rafael Tasis, pp. [8].
First separate edition, one of fifteen numbered copies on Rives paper with a suite of twelve illustrations signed by the artist, of this Catalan short story describing a child’s apocalyptic nightmare, set against the backdrop of the author’s hometown of Girona, brought to press by Catalan exiles in Paris.
The Catalan poet, writer, and translator Joaquim Ruyra (1858–1939) was raised in the city of Girona, his familiarity with the city evident in his evocative descriptions of old ladies gardening, the sun glittering on the river Onyar, or the bell tower of St Felix, ‘rising like a giant cypress – mystical, dreamy, speaking of the melancholy inspiration of centuries past’ (trans.). Ruyra’s idyllic depiction of the city quickly turns sinister when Girona is plunged into three days of apocalyptic darkness, and our young narrator, passing a man perched on the eaves of a roof like a gargoyle, his head bleeding, and a woman whose eyes were devoid of all light, ‘white and dry like an eggshell’ (trans.), is swept into an eerie procession through the city to the Plaza de la Catedral, the townspeople repeating ‘Miserere, miserere nobis’.
Ruyra had died in 1939, and the present edition of La fi del món a Girona – first published in 1903 as part of his collection La parada – was produced by Catalan exiles in France at a time when Catalan language and literature had been suppressed under Franco. Loosely inserted is a prospectus by the Catalan politician and bookseller Rafael Tasis (1906–1966), author of the preface, who lived in exile in Paris from 1939 following the abolition of the Generalitat de Catalunya under Franco’s dictatorship; producing a de luxe edition of a modern Catalan author, he argues, is as much a necessity as it is a luxury, particularly ‘amidst the privations and anxieties of exile, while in Catalonia all public manifestations of the language are still banned’ (trans.). Ninety-five copies were printed, and this one, no. XVII of fifteen copies numbered XI–XXV, is printed on Rives paper and is accompanied by a suite of striking signed chromolithographs by the Catalan artist Carles Fontserè (1916–2007), known for his Republican posters during the Spanish Civil War.
OCLC finds six copies only, three of which in the US (Berkeley, LoC, NYPL); we are unable to trace any copies in the UK.
See Capdevila, Joaquim Ruyra, narrador (2010).
