Saül, Drame en 5 Actes
Paris: Société de Mercure, 1903. From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Bound with: 'L'immoraliste'. Paris: Société de Mercure, 1902. Together two volumes in one, small 8vo. In a contemporary designer binding by René Kieffer in full tan pigskin, with a leather bas-relief sculpture [cuir ciselé] by R. Prath set into each cover, one depicting a scene from Saul and the other from L’Immor- aliste, each bas-relief signed by Prath, tan pigskin gilt inner turn-ins, blue leather linings, marbled flyleaves, top edges gilt, others uncut, original printed wrappers bound in, signed “Rene Kieffer” on front turn-in. In quite fine condition. Item #409170
First editions of Gide’s first play and most important novel, limited to 120 and 300 copies respectively; each printed on verge d’Arches. This is the dedication copy of Saul, inscribed by the author on the half-title: “À Ed. de Max / avec l’admiration et l’affection / de son ami / Andre Gide / Aout 1903.” Edouard de Max is also the presentation recipient of L’Immoraliste, which is inscribed on its half-title: “À Ed. de Max / son ami / Andre Gide.” (L’Immoraliste is dedicated to Henri Gheon,” “his frank comrade.”) Tipped to a flyleaf at front is an ALS (2 pp., 12mo, dated 1918) from de Max to an unnamed recipient possibly referring to this volume.
Edouard de Max (1869-1925) was one of the leading actors on the Parisian stage, frequently playing opposite Sarah Bernhardt. Openly gay, he was a personal friend of Gide’s, who saw him as the ideal actor to play Saul. Gide finished his play in April 1898, but it was not staged until 1922. Oscar Wilde, in a Paris, Dec. 6, 1898, letter to Reggie Turner refers to it: “Andre Gide, one of my old friends here, has written an astonishing play on Saul, whose madness he ascribes to his hopeless love for David, and his wild jealousy of Jonathan..." (Letters, ed R. Hart-Davis, p. 768).
Regarding L’Immoraliste, Cyril Connolly in The Modern Movement (where it is no. 13), writes “Here the pagan destructiveness implicit in the pagan obsession with the body, the latent homosex- uality which the desert brings out is prophetic of some aspects of his own life, so changed by his meeting with Wilde and Douglas.” Simply, a remarkable volume.
Price: $15,000.00