Paris, Les Editions de Minuit, 1942.
16mo of 90 pp., (3) ll. Preserved in its original wrappers, as issued, under its white flapped cover printed in black.
165 x 110 mm.
Exceptional copy of the exceedingly rare first edition of this literary masterpiece which would become, at the Liberation, the emblematic text of the intellectual Resistance.
Henri Vignes, Bibliographie des Editions de Minuit, p. 51.
« Literary masterpiece whose plot as well as style display exemplary sobriety, ‘Le Silence de la mer’ portrays a French family opposed to any compromise with the refined and cultivated German officer who has taken up residence in their home. This manual of proper conduct for the occupied, a veritable bomb thrown against the policy of collaboration, is the first narrative by Jean Bruller published under the pseudonym Vercors (1902–1991), as well as the founding work of Les Editions de Minuit […]
The colophon states that the volume was published “at the expense of a patriot.” It was indeed Pierre de Lescure who financed, from his own funds, the 350 copies of the first edition, printed by Claude Oudeville in his small printing shop on the Boulevard de l’Hopital. The text was set sheet by sheet, between two announcements, with type supplied by Ernest Aulard, but in insufficient quantity: “When eight pages are set, they must be corrected, laid out, printed. Then everything is broken up and the next eight begun again,” recounts Debû-Bridel in his Historique des Editions de Minuit, adding that Claude Oudeville thus took two months to print 90 pages! The stitching was carried out by Yvonne Paraf, a childhood friend of Jean Bruller, who would become the driving force behind Les Editions de Minuit. This first printing can be distinguished from subsequent ones notably by the misprint “déguingandé” on the fourth line of the first page of text.
‘Le Silence de la mer’ was not distributed until the end of 1942, first to around one hundred Parisian personalities, and also in the southern zone (where most copies were seized and destroyed by the Germans when crossing the demarcation line). Reprinted many times during the war, both in France and abroad, it would become, at the Liberation, the emblematic text of the intellectual Resistance.
Vercors had wished this booklet to be of great typographical refinement.
Its remarkable rarity makes it today an almost mythical collector’s item.
(Henri Vignes, Bibliographie des Editions de Minuit, p. 51).
« This sensitive and dignified short story, overflowing at once with sorrow and hope, made its author famous » (Dictionnaire des Œuvres, VI, 142).
« Vercors, whose real name was Jean Bruller (1902–1991), was a French illustrator and writer. With the Second World War and his very active participation in the Resistance—which he would recount in ‘La Bataille du silence’ (1967)—with the founding in 1941 (with the writer Pierre de Lescure) of Les Editions de Minuit, and finally with life in hiding, Jean Bruller became Vercors and turned from drawing to writing, publishing clandestinely his first novel, ‘Le Silence de la mer’ (1942), whose literary, political, and moral impact was immense, and which J.-P. Melville translated into images very faithful to the text in a moving film (1947). It is an image of Resistance through the obstinate silence that a daughter and her father oppose to a German occupying officer who lives in their house, in the provinces. » (Dictionnaire des auteurs, IV, 590–591).
Precious copy of this first edition of remarkable rarity, in mint condition, as issued. « Its remarkable rarity makes it today an almost mythical collector’s item ».
Our research has not enabled us to locate a single copy of this rare first edition in any French public institution, including the B.n.F.!
