The Fleshly Prelude : Vendome Press 1939 [ Lecram – Servant , Jack Kahane , Obelisk Press ]
$250
In stock
Description
Scarce early English translation of Prelude Charnel as Fleshly Prelude from The Vendome Press imprint of Jack Kahane , more famous for the Obelisk Press , rebound in leather
Sermaise [Denoel], Robert. The Fleshly Prelude. The Vendome Press : 338 Rue Saint Honore Paris. 1939. Second English edition.
Second English language edition of the influential French erotic novel “Prelude Charnel” with reworked opening following of the 1938 first English translation also published by Vendome Press.
Originally published in 1934, this book is an unusual matrimonial erotic fantasy of delayed gratification focused on the courtship and seduction of a newlywed husband and wife. Inspired in part by the real relationship of its author Robert Denoel, who published the book under the penname Sermaise, the truth of his authorship emerged after his death when his wife sued for the rights to royalties and produced the original manuscript. The controversial co-founder of Editions Denoel, the originally Belgian Robert Denoel was accused of collaboration with the German occupiers and Vichy government in France, though this book proved enormously popular during the war due to the number of couples undergoing prolonged separation.
Denoel was assassinated while changing the tire on his car in Paris shortly after liberation in 1945.
This edition from the first English translations produced by Vendome Press represents another unstated pornographic collaboration between Jack Kahane of Obelisk Press and his on again off again printer Marcel Servant. Co-owner of the Lecram-Servant Printer, Servant helped operate Kahane’s off-label “Vendome Press” from 338 Rue Saint Honore utilizing the printing presses originally acquired by the English ex-pat Herbert Clarke through to Kahane’s death in the fall of 1939. No translator is given, though significant changes are evident from the first 1938 translation to the text found here. It’s possible that this may represent an original translation from Kahane, though, as Miers and Armstrong’s 2011 bibliographic history Of Daffodils and Obelisks put it, Servant and his printing partner M. Lecram are two of the “many mysteries surrounding the Obelisk Press”.
A noted publisher of controversial literature as well as erotic material, Jack Kahane ‘s other publications from Obelisk Press and Vendome Press included his own Daffodils under the penname “Cecil Barr” and some of the earliest books by Henry Miller. An associate of Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company, Kahane was disappointed not to have picked up Joyce’s Ulysses when he had a chance and would later go on to inspire the Olympic Press.
This copy, attractively rebound from its wraps into contemporary half leather marbled boards, was purchased and preserved by an early discriminating collector as seen in other the few other surviving, highly collectible rebound copies of Vendome and Obelisk books.
8vo, 197 pp, contemporary half leather rebinding with marbled boards. Corners bumped with rubbing. Wear and cracking to spine hinges. Top bookblock edge, gilt. Floral pastedowns and endpapers. Pencil ’39’ to title page margin. Pages toned but clean. Good condition.
If you liked this book, you might also like this copy of the 1947 limited first edition of By, For & About Henry Miller.
