Paul Valéry - Littérature [Edition originale, 1/200 sur vergé Lafuma] - 1929

Rare original edition of this short collection published by Paul Valéry in 1929. Limited print run of 304 copies, plus a few off-market copies. This one, one of 200 copies on Lafuma laid paper, bears the number 113.

Paperback, with folded and printed cover.
Beautiful copy, in very good condition. Very discreet traces on the cover. Impeccable interior despite the first endpaper being slightly detached.

Literature oscillates between amusement, teaching, preaching or propaganda, self-exercise, and exciting others.
Poetry is merely literature reduced to the essential of its active principle. It has been purged of idols of all kinds and of realistic illusions; of the possible equivocation between the language of 'truth' and the language of 'creation,' etc. And this almost creator-like, fictional role of language — (its practical and truthful origin) — is made as evident as possible by the fragility or arbitrariness of the subject.

Paul Valéry
Literature [Original edition, 1/200 on Lafuma handmade paper]
Paris, at the Maison des Amis des livres, at Adrienne Monnier's, 1929
Small in-4, 24.5 x 19 cm; 57 pages