85 - SEGALEN (VICTOR)

SEGALEN (VICTOR) Stèles. Pei-King, Pei-T'ang Press, 1912. Volume in folio (288 x 142 mm), accordion-folded, 106 pp. (including the first 2 and last 3 blank endpapers), cream-colored paper cover with a printed title label mounted on the front cover, the whole bound in two cardboard boards with Sinicized Art Nouveau decoration, held together by purple and gold laces. Slight marks from adhesive tape used to secure the cellophane cover. Genuine first edition, from a non-commercial print run limited to only 286 copies. Copy No. 90 on vellum. “A standard print run was produced on parchment-finished vellum. The numbering continues beyond the 81 copies justified under ‘Korea.’ […] It seems unlikely that the figure of 200 copies (mentioned in a letter from the author) was ever reached. Only by examining the numbers of the copies that booksellers or collectors might encounter or acquire will this bibliophilic detail ever be settled, ” Jean Loize, “From Tahiti to Tibet: The Stopovers and Treasures of the Poet Victor Segalen (1878–1919),” 1944. Printed on the Lazarist presses in Beijing in May and June 1912, and published on August 13, 1912, this first edition is the only one corrected by Segalen himself; this contrasts with the second edition, the printing of which he was, to his regret, unable to oversee, as it proceeded too quickly for his liking. Complete with the three hand-stamped “cinnabar” red seals at the beginning and end of the volume. AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED DEDICATION by the author to Eddy Poilay [?] “in cordial anticipation,” dated November 1912 and written in Changdefu. Both a “vision of China” and a major work of 20th-century French literature, this text stems from Segalen’s profound experience of the Chinese world. After beginning to study Chinese in 1908, he traveled to China three times: first as a doctor and explorer from 1909 to 1913, then on two archaeological missions in 1913–1914 and in 1917. These journeys gave rise to significant scholarly works, notably the “First Report on the Archaeological Findings Obtained in Western China by the Gilbert de Voisins, Jean Lartigue, and Victor Segalen Mission” (1914), published in two installments (1916) and later supplemented by an atlas (1923–1924). But this immersion also nourished his literary work, inspiring a series of books that explore and reimagine China in various forms, such as “Stèles” (1912), “Peintures” (1916), and “Odes” (1926). (See Henri Bouillier, in *En Français dans le texte*, Bnf, 1998, no. 340).