Histoire d'O, a collection formed by John Baxter [58 Vols].

Bookseller Notes

For a work that so rapidly achieved fame and notoriety, the protection of the identity of L'Histoire d'O's author was a considerable achievement: the majority of the names suggested in contemporary circles were, naturally enough given the book's subject-matter, men including Alain Robbe-Grillet and Jean Paulhan, both of whom played key roles in its history which are represented by this superb archive of editions of the work and related material. The collection includes two copies of different issues of the first edition, inscribed by the book's true author Anne Desclos under her usual nom-de-plume, Dominique Aury (one also signed as Rage) the fact of her authorship not having been revealed until forty years on, when Desclos was in her eighties, explains the scarcity of presentation copies with only a few such having appeared at auctions in Paris in the last twenty years. Those here, inscribed to the film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel, who interviewed Desclos about the book towards the end of her life, are the core of this collection formed by Montel's husband, the author and bibliophile John Baxter. It includes numerous subsequent editions of the work, including those issued by Jean-Jacques Pauvert over the fifteen years following its initial success, and its sequel, the limited edition with lithographs by Leonor Fini, various other illustrated editions (including a comic-strip version) as well as artistic responses to the work, and editions in English (amongst which the Grove Press edition of Richard Seaver). The pictorial responses include the 1975 film version - present here in the form of both a DVD and a celluloid still.Whilst the continuing interest in the work is reflected in secondary material, including 'Conversations with Pauline Rage' published in 1979 and the first biography of Aury from 2006, its impact is perhaps best measured by a companion work that playfully inserts itself into the question of the author's identity: 'L'Image' by Jean de Berg appeared in 1956, dedicated to Rage and with an introduction signed with the initials 'P.R.' though in fact by Alain Robbe-Grillet, who would soon after marry the book's true author, Catherine Rstakian. The first edition with the etching by Hans Bellmer, one of 90 copies, is scarce and present here along with an 'hors commerce' review copy.The parallel literary career of Dominique Aury, as critic, editor and translator is well represented including scarce examples of her own poetry and her translation of Evelyn Waugh's 'The Loved One' as is that of her lover, and the inspiration for 'L'Histoire d'O', Jean Paulhan (amongst which, a book inscribed to Georges Sadoul). But the legacy of both is subsumed by the status of the work which began as a Sadeian experiment in literary seduction and became a classic of erotic literature.