La Liberté de L'Amour ... avec La Carmagnole sociale - Le Père La Purge - La Marseillaise des travailleurs - Madame la Marquise - Le Drapeau rouge - Aux Hugolâtres - La Commune immortelle

Paris: Librairie Socialiste Internationale / Achille Le Roy, 1887. First Edition. Octavo (20.5cm.); publisher's pink pictorial wrappers; 21,[3]pp.; vignette at head of p. [1]. Wrapper extremities a bit toned and slightly chipped, else Very Good and sound. At head of upper cover: Bibliothèque Ouvrière Cosmopolite. At bottom of last leaf of text: "Deux cents exemplaires de la LIBERTÉ DE L'AMOUR seront vendus dans les réunions populaires au bénéfice des enfants perdus, des révoltés, qui râlent dans les chiourmes." Quite uncommon proto-anarchist treatise on Free Love ("Qu'est-ce encore? De la pornographie?") and its relation to socialism. Authored by the Communard proletarian typographer, poet, bookseller, and publisher Achille Le Roy, perhaps most significant for writing the song "Le Chant des Prolétaires" (1879) and publishing several of Louise Michel's works, including "Le Débâcle Universelle" and "L'Ère Nouvelle." The author describes human nature as driven by hunger and love, and that "We love Elvire, Laure or Béatrix; we also love Mathurine, Franchette, or Manon. The socialist Fourier named this reproductive urge 'flitting,' a word that describes human nature as constantly in search of the love spasm" (our translation, p. 4). Only with the freedom to love and "libertarian communism" (p. 21) can members of the working class ameliorate their economic condition. Text concludes with a small selection of proletarian and Communard songs without music, the most famous being Paul Brousse's "Le Drapeau Rouge," first composed while in exile in Switzerland following the fall of the Paris Commune, though Le Roy expanded upon the text to the extent that he gave himself full authorship by the time he was finished. (For more information see M.R. Brécy's contribution to "La Tradition Culturelle de la Commune en France au XIXe Siècle," in "Le Mouvement Sociale," May 1971, p. 321; and Robert Brécy, "Le Drapeau Rouge," in "Revue d'Histoire Modern et Contemporaine," T. 22, no. 2, p. 264n.) Under this imprint Le Roy also published works by Marx, Kropotkin, and Lafargue, as well as the monthly "L'Avant-Garde Ouvrière: Organe Mensuel d'Union International." OCLC locates no copies in North America as of October, 2019.