Three churches

LIMITED EDITION of 260 numbered copies, this one of 180 on vellum, with full margins. It is enhanced with a significant original colored pencil drawing by Charles Jouas titled "Quartier Saint Merry, Escalier 83, rue de la verrerie", dated 1913 and signed by him, bound at the beginning of the work. Also included, separately: - 4 signed autograph letters from Charles Jouas, dated from December 1, 1939 to March 16, 1940, all addressed to the same amateur, a doctor in Orne, in search of more illustrations by the artist, to be added to his copy of Trois églises. We learn, in particular, that the amateur's mail was "carefully forwarded" to him by Mr. Giraud-Badin, in Cayeux-sur-Mer, where he "is taking refuge this winter, having young children to protect". He also mentions a copy of Focillon's Méandres, which he illustrated, and for which he is awaiting the bound copy to decorate the covers. - A signed autograph note from Joris-Karl Huysmans, on Ministry of Interior letterhead, in which he thanks a dear friend. This is one of the notes mentioned by Octave Uzanne in his article "Un suprême dégouté", dedicated to Huysmans, "realist-mystic", published for the 17th anniversary of the writer's death (on the front page of Figaro, Supplément littéraire, May 12, 1924): "Ah! His intimate epistles, his slightest notes that I often reread are [...] excessively documentary! Most of them end with brief formulas depicting his depressions". He thus quotes the end of our note: "And what? What a soft and bland weather and yet how Paris stinks!" - A handwritten graphological study, about fifteen lines long, signed by Édouard de Rougemont, on Huysmans' character based on his handwriting. Édouard de Rougemont, author of works on graphology, had notably published his Commentaires graphologiques sur Charles Baudelaire in 1922.

PRECIOUS SET, CONTAINING AN ORIGINAL DRAWING BY CHARLES JOUAS AND AUTOGRAPH LETTERS FROM THE SAME AND FROM HUYSMANS. Minor rubbing on the spine, the unsigned binding is probably by Kieffer. (Carteret, IV, p. 213: "One of Jouas' best books").