SEGALEN (Victor). - Lot 107

SEGALEN (Victor). Stèles. Pei-King: [des presses de Pei-T'ang], 1912. - In-8 elongated, 283 x 141, accordion-fold, in fancy trifold paper folder lined with "maître relieur" paper, title printed lengthwise on a label glued to the first flap, slipcase. Pierre Saunier, Victor Segalen, l'Exote, n° 87 to 91. The first edition, dedicated to Paul Claudel, of this major work by Victor Segalen, conceived and financed by the author himself. Printed in Peking on the Pei-T'ang presses, it includes seven full-page Chinese calligraphies and three hand-applied red seals: "the first, justifying the print run, reproduces the title of the collection - it is placed under the number of each copy. The second, placed on the following page opposite the first, is the author's familiar seal: the "seal of Mi Yuan" [...] The third is at the end of the Stèles and can be deciphered as follows: "Wou-tch'ao Sin-siuan nien tsiuan", and promulgates, at the end of all, what the first of the Steles, "Without Mark of Reign" announced. One can translate: 'Composed during the period Promulgation de l'Empire du Coeur de la dynastie Sans avènement dynastique'" (P. Saunier, Victor Segalen, l'Exote, p. 85). One of the numbered copies on parchment vellum, or European paper (no. 212). The print run would be 200 copies on this paper. These were published under a flap cover. The outer papers vary from copy to copy, but the lining is always composed of an almost identical "maître-relieur" marbled paper. Only the first 81 copies are contained between two camphor boards or two cloth-covered cartons. Some wear to the slipcase, small tears without missing at the folds of the folder. A few stains on the cover.