CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). - Lot 130

CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). Mort à crédit. Novel. Paris : Denoël et Steele, [1936]. - In-8, paperback. First edition dedicated to Lucien Descaves. In this famous novel, Louis-Ferdinand Céline recounts his childhood, haunted by poverty, with rage and vigor. "The public discovers the author's childhood and adolescence, prey to human misery and pettiness, through the vicissitudes and hopeless destiny of Ferdinand Bardamu, the son of shopkeepers, testing, among other places, the passage Choiseul, renamed "des Bérésinas", asserting that for little people, life is only death on credit" (Boudrot, "Bibliographie des éditions Denoël et Steele", no. 183). As stated at the beginning of the book: "At the request of the publishers, L.-F. Céline has deleted several sentences from his book, but they have not been replaced. They appear as blanks in the book. Despite its public success, the novel was immediately panned by the critics. Two months later, Robert Denoël had to publish a defense of the book under the title Apologie de Mort à crédit, in which he "opposes the judgment of the elites to the good taste of readers" (Boudrot, ibidem, p. 128). One of 790 numbered copies on Alpha, this being one of only 750 sold. Spine browned, minor tears to edges of covers.