SEGALEN (Victor). - Lot 108

SEGALEN (Victor). Épreuves corrigées de son livre Peintures. Paris : Georges Crès et Cie, 1916. - In-8, 201 x 130 : 114 ff. Half white parchment, smooth spine, first cover preserved, detached, cardboard slipcase (period binding, modern case). Precious sets of highly corrected proofs giving the virtually complete text of Segalen's book Peintures. This work was born in pre-revolutionary China and completed in war-torn Europe. In 1910-1911, Victor Segalen wrote preparatory notes for Le Fils du ciel in China, forming 4 notebooks completed on December 21, 1911. Between 1912 and 1913, he extracted the section devoted to ancient Chinese painting to create a text for the "Collection coréenne" he edited for Georges Crès. He thus drew up a second manuscript, which he reworked from February 1915 onwards, back in Europe, with a view to a current edition preceding a deluxe version. On May 19, 1915, he wrote to Jean Fernet: "At the time of coming here [to the front line], I was just putting the finishing touches to the 2nd manuscript, and was beginning the third in its definitive form." These proofs are made up of 3 complementary different sets: the third part (41 ff. not laid out, abundantly corrected in pencil and black ink) appears in a primitive print run with a "bon pour épreuves en pages" and the indication of a "peinture" to be added, here not yet printed, "Maîtrise logique de Song". The first 2 parts (63 ff., not laid out, corrected in red ink) correspond to an edition closer to Victor Segalen's final intention. The first 5 and last 5 leaves, corrected in red and black, are laid out. Victor Segalen worked actively on the placards (printed leaves not laid out) of Peintures between September 1915 and early 1916. He reworked his text with meticulous precision, intervening on both structure and style, reorganizing chapters and paragraphs, adding layout indications, making stylistic corrections such as choosing more poetic words (e.g., "son goût inné pour le spectacle" becomes "son goût inné pour le tréteau" (p. 65)), the simplification of images by removing redundancies ("le Visiteur cérémonieux et plein de bonnes manières", p. 63), work on rhythm and sonority ("C'est le château d'eau d'où viennent ses fleuves drainant les provinces" becomes "C'est le château d'eau d'où les fleuves, drainant ses provinces, découlent" (p. 90)), and so on. But Segalen also corrected typos, checked the alignment of letters and the spacing between words. Some reformulations, intermediate titles added, and the mention of Georges Crès's Zurich branch (absent in this version) differ in the final edition. A cracked hinge.