Victor SEgALEN

Stelae

Peking Pei-T'ang Press 1912

Reference: 41439

TRUE ORIGINAL EDITION, not for sale, limited to 81 numbered copies on Imperial Korean paper (no. 26). Inscribed by Segalen to Pierre Bons d'Anty "for his friendship, which one would gladly seek out even in Lhasa" (Nov. 1912).

Copy bearing the 3 usual red seals of the original 1912 edition.

Segalen's originality is already evident in the presentation of the volume. Free to give his book the appearance he desired, since he fully bore the costs of this first non-commercial edition, Segalen had the idea of drawing inspiration from Chinese bibliophily to emphasize the character he intended to give to his work. This was not merely a preoccupation with easy exoticism but the sign of a research akin to Mallarméan research. [...]

The first edition of Stèles was printed in eighty-one copies, a carefully premeditated number since it corresponds to the sacred number (9 x 9) of the slabs on the third terrace of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Victor Segalen, a Breton, naval doctor, poet, and archaeologist, travelled through northern China for several years around 1904. He died young accidentally.

Provenance: Copy of Dr. Poupelain, which was given to him by Pierre Rémy Bons d'Anty, former Consul General in Chongqing (who accompanied him to Tibet) in memory of their months of hardship experienced at 4 and 5000 meters altitude for several months.
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Sheets of different sizes printed on one side, joined and folded into a regular portfolio forming 106 pp. (4 cover pages and 102 internal pages), printed title piece pasted on the first flap. Extremely robust Korean paper combining the qualities of traditional Japanese and Chinese paper. The format is an exactly proportioned reduced model of the famous Nestorian stele of Xi'an-fu (rectangular and tall format). The text of each stele is framed by a black border, and an epigraph in Chinese characters accompanies the French title on the right.

Missing the two camphorwood boards held together by two silk laces.

  • - Number of volumes: 1 volume
  • - Format: large narrow octavo, Chinese-style fold
  • - Binding: Paperback
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