BENOIT (Pierre) - DUBOIS (Paul-Élie). - Lot 106

BENOIT (Pierre) - DUBOIS (Paul-Élie). Atlantis. Lyon: Cercle lyonnais du livre, 1934. — In-4, 310 x 240: (7 leaves, first 2 blank), 302 pp., (11 leaves, last 4 blank), printed cover. Unbound, covered with a pasteboard cover, with the publisher’s slipcase and dust jacket. A remarkable illustrated edition featuring 89 color compositions by the painter and illustrator Paul-Élie DUBOIS (1886–1949), carved in wood by Pierre Bouchet, including one frontispiece and seven full-page illustrations. The following notice appears at the beginning: “The illustrations in this book are by the painter Paul-Élie Dubois. P.-E. Dubois was a member of the official mission sent to the Hoggar in 1928. It was the first time a painter had traveled through this mysterious region. He brought back a wealth of paintings, drawings, sketches, and decorative materials, and it is his entire body of work that the Cercle Lyonnais du Livre wished to preserve for posterity. The idea of pairing this documentation with Pierre Benoit’s *L’Atlantide*—of setting the novel’s brilliant fantasy within this realistic framework—was too compelling not to win unanimous approval. Hence this edition. ” In addition to the 89 illustrations are 21 ornate letters and two gilded headpieces, which are adaptations of Tuareg ornaments and decorative motifs. Limited edition of 162 copies on Arches vellum; this copy is one of the 120 personalized copies, specially printed for René Cérenville. It is complete with the separate leaflet in which Pierre Bouchet informs the members of the Cercle Lyonnais du Livre that the proofs of pages 1, 2, 7, and 8 were damaged during dampening after printing, as well as a set of the replaced pages and plates. The copy is in very good condition.