1 - Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. *Vitam Impendere Amori*.

Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. *Vitam Impendere Amori*. Poems and drawings. Paris, Mercure de France, 1917. In-8 booklet, black morocco leather, smooth spine, covers adorned with a constellation of gold dots, pine-green suede endpapers edged with a strip of black and green morocco leather, gilt edges, original cover preserved, slipcase (R. Desmules). First edition: limited to 215 copies. Author’s copy on laid paper, unjustified, signed by the artist. A collection of six poems by Guillaume Apollinaire illustrated with eight black-and-white compositions by André Rouveyre. “These melancholic and tender quatrains—in which tragedy always seems on the verge of surfacing beneath the lightness of the images and the verse—are among the purest verses Apollinaire ever wrote” (Apollinaire, Œuvres poétiques, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, p. 1064). The poems and drawings are printed on the front of the leaves; the reverse sides are blank except for the last one, which bears the “printed” stamp. The preserved cover, made of marbled paper, bears the title printed on a label affixed to the center of the top cover. Bound with, at the end: André ROUVEYRE. Vita Vixit. Poems and two original woodcuts. Sequel and conclusion to *Vitam impendere amori*, with Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917. Paris, 1960. An edition reproducing the unpublished manuscript in facsimile. Limited edition of 261 copies: one of the 25 intended for contributors (no. XII). Beautiful autographed dedication covering the half-title page: "To my Kostia Vlasto, joyfully reunited after half a century! [...] With fond memories from Barbizon, April 4, 1960." Also included at the front is a signed autograph letter from the author to the same recipient, dated April 12, 1960. 2 pages, in-8. A prominent figure in Parisian society, Kostia Vlasto (1883–1967) was a banker of Greek origin: the caricaturist Sem depicted him as a cockatoo with a human face.