7
8
Inscribed to a pioneer of proletarian literature First edition, service de presse copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “A Henri Poulaille André Breton”. Poulaille and Breton were significant literary figures of the anti- Stalinist left, and both wrote for the short-lived magazine Clé , the publication of the International Federation for Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI), begun by Breton in 1938. FIARI was proposed and primarily organised by Breton, after his return to France from Mexico, where he had spent four months with Trotsky. The subsequent journal was intended as a monthly periodical, but only published two issues: January and February of 1939. It was significant as a demonstration of the intended unity between Marxists and anarchists, and the National Committee included a broad range of anti-Stalinist leftists: Poulaille (1896–1980), the autodidact son of an anarchist carpenter, was among them. Unfortunately “1939 was not an auspicious time to begin such a journal, and the proletarian-populist writers such as Martinet and Poulaille were uncomfortable with the many surrealists in the new movement” (Collins, p. 206). Breton’s Manifeste du surréalisme is one of the first manifestos of the surrealist movement, published just weeks after the manifesto of opposing surrealist Yvan Goll. Both Goll and Breton published their manifestos in October 1924 and clashed repeatedly over the definition of the term “surrealism”, at one point literally fighting at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées. Posterity has awarded victory to Breton, who defined surrealism as “pure psychic automatism” and claimed the term for “his own, highly programmatic, ideological aims” (Robertson). Octavo. Original orange wrappers, titles to spine and front black, publisher’s imprint to front. With glassine jacket. A bright, firm copy, spine a little rolled and sunned, dampstain and tiny chip to foot, lightly creased with minor abrasion to rear, a few spots of foxing, light offsetting to endpapers, else fresh and internally clean. A very good
copy indeed. ¶ Cath Collins, Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador , 2010; Eric Robertson & Robert Vilian, eds., Yvan Goll – Claire Goll: Texts and Contexts , 1994. £2,250 [153113] 8 BRYHER, Winifred. Film Problems of Soviet Russia. Territet: Pool, 1929 The first English-language book on Soviet cinema First edition, first printing, scarce in such a bright jacket, of this early study of Soviet film-making by a “central figure in modernist and avant-garde cultural experimentation in the early twentieth century” (Winning). Bryher’s Film Problems of Soviet Russia approached Soviet films from purely an aesthetic perspective, avoiding knotty political questions that might hamper artistic appreciation. “This aestheticist attitude was continuous with the exhibition practices of the so-called little cinemas, the art houses of the time, and cinema clubs, which screened Soviet work back-to- back with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , Un Chien Andalou , or Rain , grouping these titles together on the basis of form and ignoring their widely divergent cultural politics” (Suárez, p. 90). The rear panel advertises Close Up , the film periodical also published by Pool and edited by Kenneth Macpherson with financial backing from Bryher. Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine and front board in gilt. With illustrated dust jacket. Halftone frontispiece, 43 halftone plates. Cloth bright, spine ends lightly bumped, couple of spots to fore edge, internally sharp. A fine copy in very good dust jacket with small inkspot, light soiling to back panel, two minor closed tears and couple of chips. ¶ Juan Antonio Suárez, Pop Modernism: Noise and the Reinvention of the Everyday , 2007; Joanne Winning, Bryher: Two Novels , 2000. £1,500 [153544]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
5
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker