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35 BUTTS, Mary. Armed with Madness. London: Wishart & Company, 1928 “one of the most important and original modernist authors of the inter-war years” First edition, number 1 of 100 deluxe copies, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the frontispiece verso, “Tancred Borenius, from Mary Butts. London: January 1929”. The inevitably uncommon deluxe issue, of which 95 were available for sale, was printed on handmade paper, specially bound, and included illustrations by Jean Cocteau not present in the trade issue. Armed with Madness , a modernist treatment of the grail myth, was Butts’s second novel and the first to be published in the UK. The recipient of this copy, Tancred Borenius (1885–1948), was a Finnish art historian and the first professor of the history of art at University College London. Borenius likely met Butts through their mutual friendship with Roger Fry, who introduced Borenius to both the Bloomsbury group and peripheral artistic circles, and with whom Butts shared a romance in 1918. Borenius and Butts shared an ongoing literary correspondence, with evidence in their letters of reciprocal presentations of each other’s works. Butts’s writing remained somewhat overlooked until the 1980s. Since then, several of her novels have been republished and her work has received growing scholarly interest. She is “now recognized as one of the most important and original modernist authors of the inter-war years” (Blondel, p. 1). Octavo. Original blue buckram, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, blue silk bookmarker, entirely unopened. Frontispiece and 2 plates after drawings by Jean Cocteau. Spine and edges faintly toned, minor rubbing to extremities, faint offsetting to endpapers, a very good copy indeed, contents clean and bright. ¶ Nicholas Blondel, The Journals of Mary Butts , 2002. £7,500 [161181]
36 CAHUN, Claude. Two autograph postcards signed to Surrealist poet Robert Desnos, the second also signed by Marcel Moore. Paris & Jersey: 1932 & 1938 Overlooked no more: “When this you see, remember me” A pair of autograph postcards signed from Claude Cahun to Robert Desnos, one written from Paris, the other from Jersey in exile; in the first thanking him for a gift of flowers, and in the second reporting on their reclusive life in Jersey with their collaborator and lover Marcel Moore, who has also signed the second card using their birth name “Suzanne”. Desnos (1900– 1945) was one of Cahun’s close friends and favourite poets. Cahun (1894–1954), born Lucy Schwob, began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, and in 1918 adopted the gender-neutral name Claude Cahun. During the early 1920s, they settled in Paris and set up a studio with Suzanne Malherbe (1892–1972), who adopted the name Marcel Moore. Both Cahun and Moore participated in a number of surrealist exhibitions and enjoyed close friendships with figures such as André Breton, René Crevel, Sylvia Beach, Robert Desnos, and Adrienne Monnier. Though Moore’s involvement has not always been credited, it is now assumed that they were behind the camera for many of Cahun’s most celebrated and provocative “self”-portraits. From 1937 the couple settled in Jersey at the Schwob family retreat and, following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the other Channel Islands, they became active in the resistance. Their propaganda efforts eventually led to their arrest, and both were condemned to death in 1944, a penalty only lifted with the island’s liberation the following year. Cahun and Moore fell into relative obscurity after the Second World War, though a scholarly biography in 1992 did much to resurrect interest in their lives and work. Now both are remembered and praised for their provocative art and their engagement with concepts of gender and identity. As
34 BUTLER, Octavia E. Patternmaster. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976 her debut, inscribed to a fellow science fiction writer First edition, first printing, review copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “To Buck Coulson, Best wishes, Octavia E. Butler”, with the ownership stamp of the recipient and his wife on the front pastedown. Inscribed copies of this title are scarce. This was Butler’s debut novel, the first in the Patternist quintet, though chronologically the final. Butler was the first Black woman to receive both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and the first science fiction author to be granted a MacArthur fellowship. Robert Coulson (1928–1999) was a science fiction writer and reviewer who, together with his wife, writer Juanita Coulson, edited the fanzine Yandro , which was nominated for the Hugo Award 10 years in a row from 1959 through to 1968, winning in 1965. Octavo. Original beige leatherette, spine lettered in black, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Loosely inserted is the publisher’s review slip, previously taped on the front free endpaper. Head of spine lightly creased, edges and endpapers a touch foxed, remnants of tape from review slip on front free endpaper, trivial rubbing from tape on rear free endpaper. A near-fine copy in jacket, spine sunned, a few spots of foxing, a touch of rubbing to extremities, very sharp. ¶ Amanda Boulter, “Polymorphous Futures”, American Bodies, Cultural Histories of the Physique , 1996. £4,000 [156857]
part of his 2007 exhibition of Cahun and Moore’s work for the High Line Festival in New York David Bowie said: “you could call [Cahun] transgressive or you could call her a cross dressing Man Ray with surrealist tendencies. I find this work really quite mad, in the nicest way. Outside of France and now the UK she has not had the kind of recognition that, as a founding follower, friend and worker of the original surrealist movement, she surely deserves. Meret Oppenheim was not the only one with a short haircut”. We can trace no comparable autograph material for Cahun in commerce; signed or inscribed copies of their surrealist publication Aveux non Avenus (1930) have surfaced several times at auction, but little else beyond that, and certainly nothing of this length or with such an excellent association. Two autograph postcards signed, each written across both message and address panel, with postmarked envelopes. The first, dated Wednesday 29 April [1932]: single postcard with colour-printed photographic illustration of orange lilies recto (92 × 142 mm), handwritten in blue ink across verso, addressed “Cher amis” and signed “Claude”; together with an envelope postmarked 15 November 1932, addressed to “Monsieur Robert Desnos, 6 rue Lacretelle, Paris, XVe” in blue ink, in which Desnos apparently kept the present card. The second, dated June 1938: single postcard with black-and- white-printed photographic illustration of a woman picking “Jersey Cabbages”, captioned as such (88 × 138 mm), handwritten in blue ink across verso, signed “Claude”, additionally signed “Suzanne”; together with an envelope postmarked 27 June 1938, addressed to “M. et Mme Robert Desnos, 19 rue Magazine, Paris, 6e, France” in blue ink, with the return address “Mlle L. Schwob, St Brelade’s Bay, Jersey, Iles de la Manche” to verso. Postcards slightly toned, else fine, the envelopes a little raggedly opened and slightly creased. ¶ We use the pronouns they/theirs for Cahun, following the preference, expressed in their autobiography, for the neuter gender; we acknowledge that they also used female pronouns during their lifetime. £6,500 [131539]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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