CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). - Lot 144

CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). Bagatelles pour un massacre. Paris: Denoël, [1937] -In-8, 231x140: 379 pp, (2 ff. last blank), printed cover. Paperback. First edition of this anti-Semitic pamphlet, Céline's second after Mea Culpa, a violently anti-Communist text published earlier that year. Bagatelles pour un massacre was written in the summer of 1937, following several disappointments for the author. It's a "composite text, mixing arguments about ballets (the pretext of the collection - these would have been refused by Jewish decision-makers, triggering the author's fury), a trip to Russia (under the domination of Communist Jews), a literary manifesto (in favor of Aryan spontaneity and rejecting "the convoluted" as well as "Critique") and topical stories (about the political and social reality of France under the Blum government); for the most part, it's a long, vehemently racist anti-Semitic indictment, purporting to be pacifist and constituting a veritable call to pogrom, justified in several places in the text: it is a response to the alleged warmongering of the Jewish community in France, hence the trailer's caustic argument: "For a good laugh in the trenches."" (André Deval, L'Accueil critique de "Bagatelles pour un massacre", Écriture, 2010). ONE OF 33 NUMBERED EXEMPLIES ON HOLLAND VAN GELDER, second paper after 15 on japon impérial. A very well preserved copy.