MABILLE (Pierre).

Le Miroir du merveilleux. Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1962. Small in-4, paperback, untrimmed, uncut. Second edition, with an unpublished preface by André Breton in homage to Pierre Mabille, who died ten years earlier. The original edition was published in 1940 by Editions du Sagittaire. One of the 118 first copies reprinted on vellum pur fil, sought after for the five original engravings by Max Ernst, Victor Brauner, Herold, Wilfredo Lam and Roberto Matta, which they feature, whereas the current edition, printed at 2000 copies, is not illustrated. The first copies are signed by the five artists at the justification. A physician and anthropologist, Pierre Mabille (1904-1952) was a professor at the Paris School of Anthropology from 1949 until his death. "His quest for a global thought that is not, as in specialized knowledge, separated from life, led him to approach spiritual and magical phenomena through an integral materialism, taking into account all aspects of the human: economic, social, psychic, cultural" (Henri Vignes). A very pure copy. Vignes, n°423.