KEROUAC (Jack).

Les Souterrains. Paris, Gallimard, 1964. In-12, black box, decorated with vertical bands of black and grey mosaic lizard skin, interlaced on the first board with three tan box strips, one curved across the spine and the second board, and punctuated with two gilt lozenges, smooth spine, ochre textured paper lining and endpapers, untrimmed, cover and spine, matching transparent spine folder and lined case (Devauchelle). First edition of the first French translation, given by Jacqueline Bernard. One of 26 copies on pur fil, the only large paper. Written in 1953 and published in 1958 in the United States, Les Souterrains romanticizes Kerouac's affair with Alene Lee, an African-American woman who frequented the jazz clubs and the beat scene in San Francisco. Kerouac also featured William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassady, etc. under pseudonyms.