Paris: The Olympia Press, 1954. Very Good. Item #9281

Paris: The Olympia Press, 1954. First Edition. 16mo (7" x 5"); [xi], 12-575pp. Salmon dust jacket folded over plain white wraps. Printed on India paper. Covers rubbed along edges with shallow chips / tears at spine ends, some creasing to back, and a nickel-sized abrasion to top front corner, presumably from prior sticker removal. Gaps visible at hinges, but glue between spine and text block is holding soundly. Corner-creasing to first few pages with various lighter creases to thin paper throughout, but pages unmarked and generally crisp. Binding is sound.

First English-language translation of de Sade's unfinished erotic / pornographic novel, written in secret while he was imprisoned in the Bastille. The Olympia Press also issued a two-volume edition the same month. Bibliographer Patrick Kearney notes an Olympia catalogue claiming the two-volume edition was a limited printing, though any limitations are unknown, and speculates the two editions were intended for different markets, with "the one-volume edition on thin India paper for easier smuggling into England and the United States, and the...two-volume edition on heavy wove paper a relatively small printing struck off for domestic consumption in France" (Kearney p39).

[Kearney 1.9.1].

Price: $120.00