JABÈS, Edmond.
Les Pieds en l’Air. Poèmes précedés d’une lettre de Max Jacob. Couverture et dessins de Mayo.
First edition. One of 200 unnumbered copies on papier bouffant, part of a total edition of 373 copies. ‘… The Cairo/Alexandria journal La Semaine Égyptienne became Jabès’s publisher with Maman in 1932 and Les Pieds en l’air and Arches poétiques in 1934 and 1935. These are taller and slimmer than the Figuière books with their flat spines. All are illustrated, and rules, both single and double, abound on covers and pages. Each carries a full, French tirage showing that it was possible for Jabès to offer and inscribe copies on special papers (Antique White Laid, Antique Blue Laid) to family, friends, fellow poets, and critics. Les Pieds en l’air is the most advanced of the three. Illustrated with nightmare line drawings by the surrealist artist Mayo, each page of the book is bracketed with double rules at head and foot, and the poem titles are printed in bold face within rule boxes’ (Stoddard, p. 6).
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