Lusanne: La Guilde du Livre, (1952). First edition, NOT the later published by Aperture in 2001. Quarto, original photo-pictorial dust jacket over stiff wrappers with the original glassine. Limited and numbered edition: this copy is number 5804 of 10.300 copies. With 75 heliogravure plates of which 1 gatefold. Except for a small 'dog ear', in exceptionally good condition considering its age. Considered one of Strand's most beautiful and sensitive bodies of work. (Parr/Badger, The Photobook, I.207). Roth 136. “Of all Strand’s books, La France de Profil (A Profile of France) is the truest collaboration with a writer. It is Roy’s book as much as Strand’s. Not content only to write a text explaining the imagery, or describing France, Roy allowed the physical form of his writing to be guided by the form of the pictures. Pages were conceived as image-text pieces, with the writer’s hand-written texts wittily echoing the photograph’s compositional lines across the pages, or combined with photographs placed amongst paragraphs collaged from newspapers”