48 - Robert DESNOS. *Contrée*. Etching by Picasso. Paris, Robert J. Godet, 1944.

Robert DESNOS. *Contrée*. Etching by Picasso. Paris, Robert J. Godet, 1944. Large 8vo, paperback, padded cover, modern brown paper slipcase. First edition: illustrated with a Picasso etching on a loose-leaf insert. Printed in an edition of 213 copies, including three for contributors: one of the 200 on Lafuma pure-fiber vellum (no. 192). Desnos met the publisher Robert J. Godet through Godet’s wife, Elisabeth (known as Babette), who worked at the same newspaper as the poet, *Aujourd’hui*. (It is well known how much he would be criticized for this association, as *Aujourd’hui* was a collaborationist publication.) It was in fact this encounter with Desnos that inspired Godet to enter the publishing business. “He was just twenty years old and had a love of books. He published twelve titles during the Occupation, including two collections by Desnos, *État de veille* in 1943 and *Contrée* in 1944. The collection was called ‘Pour mes amis’” (Anne Egger). “Contrée is dedicated ‘to Youki,’ who had been the poet’s partner since 1930. […] In the final poem, ‘L’épitaphe,’ the poet proclaims: ‘You who are alive, fear nothing from me, for I am dead. / Nothing survives of my mind or my body.” A sad omen, for, in fact, the Gestapo arrested Desnos on February 22, 1944—even before the book’s publication—and he died in deportation fifteen months later” (Goeppert). A fine copy, as published. (Egger, Robert Desnos, p. 889.—Goeppert & Cramer, Pablo Picasso, Catalogue Raisonné of Illustrated Books, no. 39.- Imbert, Robert J. Godet, Editor of Bataille, Michaux, and Desnos, 2000, no. 12.—Johnson, Artists’ Books in the Modern Era, 1870–2000, no. 68.)