This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.
A particularly sumptuous volume from the collection of Gérard Nordmann is today’s Santo Domingo Collection feature. This 1938 publication of Poèmes inédits (Unpublished poems) by Pierre Louÿs was limited to 109 numbered copies; this is copy 5. Louÿs wrote frequently on sensuality in general, and on lesbians in particular; in keeping with these themes, the volume is illustrated with a series of erotic engravings by Edouard Chimot. This copy features an additional suite of test prints in various states, as well as ten of Chimot’s original drawings. Rarer still are a full twenty pages of Louÿs’s manuscript poems, mounted to leaves at the beginning of the volume.
Finally, the binding: Poèmes inédits is bound in full teal morocco, dotted in gilt, with blue suede endsheets and a spattered paper clamshell cover and slipcase. Many hands worked to produce it: a label on a preliminary leaf proclaims the binding to be the work of the Société A.C.F.M., comprising the French binders Arnoult, Collet, Fache, and Merchier.
Pierre Louÿs. Poèmes inédits. [Paris?]: [publisher not identified], [1938]. FC9.L9397.938p.
Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.