Séjour

Paris: Georges Richar (Les Èditions de Minuit). Printed by l'Atelier Georges Leblanc, Paris, 1970. Oblong 4to. (7 3/8 x 10 inches). Number 25 of 25 copies printed in black on handmade laid paper from Auvergne by Moulin Richard-de-Bas with 5 additional etchings on China paper and an original drawing (from a total edition of 175; plus 17 non-commercial copies: copies numbered I-VII were reserved for the authors and editor; copies numbered VIII-XV reserved for collaborators; and 2 copies numbered 0 and 00 reserved for the Bibliothèque Nationale). Signed by Beckett in ink and with Deyrolle's atelier stamp. Text in French. Illustrated with 5 etchings after drawings by Jean Deyrolle, etched by Louis Maccard. [12] 5 etchings [4] 1 drawing [1-10] 11-24 [8]. Loose folded sheets in stiff folded wrappers as issued. Housed in the publisher's beige clamshell box

One of twenty-five signed first edition copies of Samuel Beckett's collaboration with the French abstractionist Jean Deyrolle that include 5 additional etchings and an original Deyrolle drawing. Séjour was Deyrolle's last work; he died in Toulon during its production.

Séjour is the first section of text from Samuel Beckett's (1906-1989) short story "Le Dépeupleur," which Les Èditions de Minuit published in French in 1970, and which was later published in English as "The Lost Ones" (New York: Grove Press, 1972). In spare prose Beckett relates the existence of a people living in a minimalist world inside of a flattened cylinder whose relations are highly restricted by the cylinder's climate of constantly fluctuating weather. The first line of "The Lost Ones": "Abode where lost bodies roam each searching for its lost one" appears in Séjour as "Séjour òu des corps vont cherchant chacun son dépeupleur." Beckett, the Irish modernist writer, was a giant of twentieth-century English literature, and is most well-known for his plays Waiting for Godot and Endgame, both of which take place in similarly bleak, blank worlds of bizarre interaction and existential black humor. Jean Deyrolle (1911-1967) was a leading abstract painter in Post-War France who took ill prior to Séjour's publication, convalescing and then dying in Toulon. The suite of five drawings presented here as engraved printed illustrations were chosen by Beckett out of a group of 32 drawings Deyrolle had drawn in the hospital for this collaboration. The artist's book was subsequently published posthumously according to Deyrolle's plans. This is why a studio stamp has been used for Deyrolle's signature. Georges Richar-Riviere, who published Séjour under the auspices of both "G. R." and Les Èditions de Minuit, also wrote its introduction, and later in life edited Deyrolle's catalogue raisonne, published in 1998 by Cercle d'Art.

Georges Richar-Rivier, Deyrolle Catalogue Raisonne, Paris: Cercle d'Art, 1998. Monod n° 1274.