Robert Margerit - Le Dieu nu [ex. numéroté, cartonnage Prassinos] - 1951

Original edition of Robert Margerit's novel (1910-1988), published in 1951 by Gallimard and awarded the Renaudot prize the same year.

One of the 750 reassembled copies, printed on wove vellum from the Navarre paper mills in Voiron, bound according to Mario Prassinos's design. This one is numbered 54.

Beautiful binding executed in the Bradel style, with an ebony cover featuring blue and turquoise motifs on the boards, a smooth spine decorated with the title and similar blue and gold motifs. In excellent condition.

Mario Prassinos (1916-1985) was a French non-figurative painter and engraver of Greek origin from the new École de Paris. In 1942, he became associated with Raymond Queneau and collaborated with the éditions of the NRF, for which he designed book mock-ups and book covers, sometimes called Prassinos covers or 'Bonet-Prassinos bindings.'


Summary: Bruno is a young man passionate and dark; Jacqueline is a very beautiful young woman, full of delicacy, but weak, irresolute, subject to the judgments of the world and the commandments of religion. Between these two beings, love will soon intervene. For Bruno, it takes the form of a fierce passion that will cause suffering and sometimes turn him into a tormentor himself. As for Jacqueline, no less passionate, her shyness and fear will constantly make her recoil from happiness.
This drama is dominated by Marité, Bruno's sister, an infinitely troubling character endowed with a powerful life and a sharp mind.
The naked God is truly the story of love: its birth, its climax, and its 'decrystallization.' Robert Margerit describes all its phases with a certainty of analysis and an economy of means that produce an unusual tone in current literature. His novel, passionate and burning, an anthem to the 'naked God,' god of Love, never ceases to be chaste. (Gallimard)

Robert Margerit
The naked God
Paris, Gallimard nrf, 1951
In-12 (18 x 11.5 cm); 293 pages