Jarry (Alfred) - Lot 44

Jarry (Alfred) Ubu Roi. Drame en cinq Actes / en prose / Restitué en son intégrité / tel qu'il a été représenté par / les marionnettes du Théâtre / des Phynances en 1888. Éditions du Mercure de France, Paris, 1896. Illustrated with two woodcuts by the author: Véritable portrait de Monsieur Ubu on cover and frontispiece, and Autre portrait de Monsieur Ubu, de profil. First edition (16 x 12 cm). Devauchelle slipcase. A unica, the only one of the 5 head copies on japon to remain in the original paperback, as issued. Ubu Roi was completed on June 11, 1896. The work is decorated with woodcuts by the author and printed like Perhinderion, the magazine created by Jarry, who ruined it after two issues, in 15th-century-inspired type, which he had engraved by Charles Renaudie. Ubu Roi followed closely on the heels of César-Antéchrist, a three-act drama published the previous year, which, as the critic Édouard Ducoté wrote at the time, was "a gageure to stupefy the most unprepared minds". The publication of Ubu Roi was quickly hailed by Gustave Kahn, Jean de Tinan and André Fontainas, not to mention Stéphane Mallarmé in the autumn, while Jarry was preparing the production of Henrik Ibsen's complex Peer Gynt for November at the Théâtre de l'œuvre. The other 4 copies on japon, like this one, are not all justified. They are all bound: Copy no. 1, unsigned art deco binding (Librairie Jean-Claude Vrain, XXVe Biennale des Antiquaires, no. 30). Copy no. 2, dispatch to Lugné-Poë, binding by Huser (Le Cabinet des livres de Renaud Gillet, Sotheby's, London, October 27, 1999, no. 60). Copy with dispatch to Marcel Schwob, binding by Paul Vié (Daniel Sickles, Laurin-Guilloux-Buffetaud-Tailleur sale, Drouot, June 13-15, 1983, no. 269). Tradition has it that this copy was kept by Alfred Jarry, and probably bound by him (André Lefèvre, Ader-Ribault-Menetière sale, Drouot, December 7-8, 1965, no. 440; Daniel Sickles, Laurin-Guilloux-Buffetaud-Tailleur sale, Drouot, June 13-15, 1983, no. 268, now in the Bibliothèque nationale). Provenance: Jean-Paul Kahn.