Marcel Proust / Philippe Jullian - A la recherche du temps perdu - 1968

PROUST (Marcel). In Search of Lost Time. Preface by André Maurois, of the Académie française. Illustrations by Philippe Jullian. Text established from autograph manuscripts by Pierre Clarac and André Ferré. Paris, Gallimard / NRF, collection “La Gerbe illustrée,” 1968-1969.

Seven volumes in octavo (about 235 × 160 mm), publisher’s full green morocco bindings by Babouot after Massin’s designs, smooth spines with gilded filet compartments, author, title and volume number gilded, broad frames of gilded filet on the covers, golden “nrf” monogram at the foot of the spines, gilded tops, cloth bookmarks. Approximately 458, 528, 390, 485, 466, 489 and 365 pages.

Complete illustrated edition with 107 plates hors texte by Philippe Jullian, etched and finished with drypoint, printed in relief by the Imprimerie Genèse: each plate bears the copper plate’s cuvette, whose impression is also readable in relief on the verso of the leaf. These are therefore original engravings drawn from the artist’s plates, and not photomechanical reproductions. Text composed in Baskerville font size ten and printed on Verge de Saint-Amand paper from the Grillet et Féau papermakers by the Imprimerie Firmin-Didot. Completed printing of the seventh and last volume: 15 October 1969.

Numbered copy 415, the colophon noting that only copies of the seventh and last volume carry a number. Complete in seven volumes: I. Du côté de chez Swann — II. À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs — III. Le Côté de Guermantes I — IV. Le Côté de Guermantes II (suite) and Sodome et Gomorrhe I — V. Sodome et Gomorrhe II (suite) and La Prisonnière I — VI. La Prisonnière II (suite) and La Fugitive — VII. Le Temps retrouvé. Notes and index at the end of each volume.

A fine, homogeneous set, of great internal freshness, in a decorative binding with handsome restraint.

Significance of the edition:

— Philippe Jullian (1919-1987) is one of the leading illustrators and chroniclers of 1900s taste, biographer of Robert de Montesquiou — the explicit model for Baron de Charlus. His intellectual proximity to the Proustian world makes this set of 107 plates one of the reference graphic interpretations of the Recherche, alongside Van Dongen.

— Original engravings, not reproductions.

— Massin (1925-2020), artistic director of Gallimard, signs here the binding maquettes. His name today is a strong selling point for connoisseurs of typography and French editorial design.

— The full-leather Babouot binding, gilded with the original tools, clearly distinguishes this ensemble from club bindings in skivertex or faux leather that circulate with similar presentations.

— The Verge de Saint-Amand paper and Baskerville body ten composition for Firmin-Didot place the manufacture above the standard of the era and explain the freshness of the interiors fifty-seven years later.