89 - SEGALEN (VICTOR)

SEGALEN (VICTOR) Steles. Pei-King, Pei-T'ang Press, 1914. In-8 volume in folio (288 x 142 mm), accordion-bound, cream-colored paper cover (torn and pitted with traces of adhesive tape; title label missing), held together by wooden boards engraved with the title in Chinese and French and secured with yellow laces. Second wooden board split in two. 7 full-page reproductions of Chinese calligraphy, Chinese ideograms in the text, 3 Chinese seals in red ink. Paper is warped. Second edition, partly original. Print run of 640 copies; No. 227 of 570 on felted laid paper. First edition available in bookstores, expanded to include 16 “steles” and a lengthy explanation of the layout, which had not appeared in the rare first edition of 1912. “The ‘stele’ form adopted arose from a striking analogy between the stone tablets scattered throughout China and the ‘ short, dense prose pieces’ he proposed to write even before he had seen them. “ (In French in the text, no. 340).”