68 - Paul ÉLUARD, K. YANNOPOULOS & F. ASTÉRIS. Greece, My Rose of Reason. Translated by Melpo Axioti and Paul Éluard. Paris, Réclame, 1949. Oblong 8vo, paperback, cloth-bound cover, modern red paper slipcase.

Paul ÉLUARD, K. YANNOPOULOS & F. ASTÉRIS. Greece, My Rose of Reason. Translated by Melpo Axioti and Paul Éluard. Paris, Réclame, 1949. Oblong 8vo, paperback, cloth-bound cover, modern red paper slipcase. First commercial edition, partially original: one of the 100 limited-edition copies printed on Marais Crèvecoeur paper, this one being one of the 15 non-commercial copies (no. 10). This edition should not be confused with the woodcut edition by Zizi Makris, featuring a selection of six poems, which appeared shortly before. A copy belonging to Claire and Claude Roy bearing a beautiful full-page autograph dedication on the preliminary leaf: To Claire and Claude one is indignant and the other calms him down; both know how to smile when I tell them that I love them, Paul Éluard Included is a long, handwritten, signed letter from Claude Roy, dated November 1, 1953, addressed to Jean Lescure from Marancheville (3 pages, in-8). In it, he reflects on the poet one year after his death: “Never have I been as sad as I am today at being stuck far from Paris. I know that with Leiris, Amrouche, and Scheler, you won’t be gathered around the microphone to discuss ideas about Paul Éluard, but to be moved again and again by his example and his work, and to move other readers through them. […] If I could have been with you, I would have tried to show what a miracle Éluard accomplished in the blossoming of the final years of his life […].”