GRACQ (Julien).

Les Eaux étroites. Paris, José Corti, 1976. In-12, framed limewood box, photographic reproduction of a brick wall in ochre shading on the boards, smooth spine, limewood paper lining and endpapers, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine, lined case (Leroux). First edition. One of 100 copies on hollande de Montévrain, the only large paper. This collection of essays and short notes evokes "the sleeping valley of the Èvre, a small unknown tributary of the Loire which flows into the river fifteen hundred metres from Saint-Florent" (p. 11), not far from the writer's native house. Autograph letter signed by Julien Gracq to his cousin Maurice Belliard and his wife Jeanne, dated 3 January 1977: this walk on a small river in the Mauges which is well known to them, with all the affection of their cousin. Maurice Belliard was the nephew of Alix Poirier, née Belliard, the mother of Gracq. Beautiful copy well bound by Georges Leroux.