[Polynésie] Victor Segalen / Jacques Boullaire - Les Immémoriaux [1/125 sur vélin] - 1948

Very beautiful illustrated edition of Victor Segalen's first novel, set in the islands of Polynesia. Decorated with 46 drypoints by Jacques Boullaire.

Limited edition of only 125 copies on Arches vellum. This one is numbered 57, printed for Madame Haasen.

Sheets, in a pink printed padded cover, folder and grey cardboard case. Title printed on the back.
In very good condition. Some signs of handling on the double case. Slightly creased cover. Impeccable interior.
Beautiful and rare specimen

Victor Segalen's first novel, published in 1907, Les Immémoriaux is a text that is at once political, philosophical, and poetic. The 'Immémoriaux' are the last pagans of the Polynesian islands, the Maoris forgetful of their customs, their knowledge, their familiar gods—in short, of their own past.
It is primarily this past that we remember of Tahiti, towards the end of the 19th century, with its precise rites and more liberated festivals. But soon the Europeans arrive, among them English Methodist missionaries armed with Bibles, codes, and an exterminating morality. However, Térii, the storyteller, hero of the book, almost unwittingly initiated into cosmogonies he neglects, travels at random through the heavens and islands.

Jacques Boullaire / Victor Segalen
Les Immémoriaux
Paris, Les Amis de Victor Segalen, 1948.
In-4, 29 x 24 cm, 227 pages