Guere mask. Height: 25 cm

[CIRIER (Nicolas)]. L'Apprentif Administrateur, a picturesque (!), literary-typographical-bureaucratic pamphlet that may (nam tua res agitur paries cùm proximus ardet) be of interest to anyone employed, employable, exemployée. By someone in the latter category. Paris, Chez l'auteur, 1840. In-8 (227 x 144 mm) of [1] f. for the Mémoire à l'appui d'une pétition, IV pp. for the Dédiquasse, 72 pp, (2) ff. for I [between pages 18 and 19], (1) f., 17 pp. and 1 folded lithographed portrait for III [between pages 24 and 25], 1 large folded lithographed table. Paperback in printed green paper cover with remnants of red wax stamp and handwritten bill laminated to first board, several small pieces of blank paper laminated to second board to mask engraved drawings in corners. First edition of 100 copies (of which less than ten have survived) of this incredible publication by Nicolas Cirier (1792-1869), proofreader and protector at the Imprimerie Royale from 1826 to 1836, when he resigned following a refusal of promotion. "This pamphlet, "bariolé d'observations" (Cirier dixit), that is to say, lithographic vignettes pasted on, woodcuts and copper engravings, a jumble of recriminations and considerations on the author's craft, interests us above all for the typographic delirium employed, for what Cirier called his horror vacui [...] The most extravagant of Cirier's productions is also the rarest: as soon as it was published, its author announced that he was going to destroy all but "five or six" copies. Little more is known of it. (Antoine Coron). According to Raymond Queneau (who worked to bring Cirier out of oblivion): "No literary madman has ever made such profound use of the resources of printing, nor so conscious an expression of his delirium." (in Bâtons, chiffres et lettres.) Copy enriched with 19 additional cut and pasted lithographs (not including the fold-out portrait and table) and 13 pasted printed texts, one flyleaf printed on pink paper before p. 5 (with the continuation of the text of the page also printed on pink paper pasted at the bottom of page 5). Cover very worn, missing at lower corner of first cover, tears with small missing pieces at upper corner of first cover (with small piece of paper laminated on verso, for reinforcement?), major missing piece on second cover. Rousseurs. (Des livres rares depuis l'invention de l'imprimerie, BnF, 1998, no. 241: notice by Antoine Coron; Blavier, Les Fous littéraires, 2000, pp. 595-604).