Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
STEIN, Gertrude.. Americains D'Amerique.. Paris, Librairie Stock, 1933., 1933.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition in French. Small 8vo (5 1/4" x 7 1/2"). Translated by Baroness J. Seilliere and Bernard Fay. Preface by Bernard Fay. Original stiff cream wrappers stamped in black and orange. Clear glassine wrapper (short tear to back cover). Very good. 260 pages. Signed and inscribed by Gertrude Stein on the half title page in black fountain pen ink: "with my sincere pleasure, Grtd. Stein." Also signed and inscribed by the translator Bernard Fay on the half title page in black fountain pen ink: "A Pierre. . .Avec l'amitie du traducteur. B. Fay." Copy number 250 of 2,200 numbered copies. Printed by Imprimerie Floch. Wilson D 6.
Seller: Houle Rare Books/Autographs/ABAA/PADA, Palm Springs, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$1610.59 + shipping
Description: First edition in French, first printing, inscribed on the first blank to the art dealer "George Maratier who was the first to want it into French and had the courage to try with all my affection and gratitude. Gertrude Stein". This is a superb association copy. This is one of 200 press review copies, with "S.P." (service de presse) on the spine and copyright page. "Maratier, though not a well-known name, turns out to have been a Stein confidant, whose many roles in the 1930s included supplying Stein with excellent wines and selling art from her collection. A cache of letters in the archives of the University of Maryland, written in French from Gertrude Stein to Maratier, divulges a closeness to [him] that rivals the relationship Stein had with Faÿ. And Maratier's short memoir, A French Businessman's Admiration for Gertrude Stein, written in English, also in this archive, suggests a reverence for Stein equal to Faÿ's" (Cone). Stein even portrayed him in her Portraits and Prayers (New York: Random House, 1934). Loosely inserted is a monochrome photographic postcard of Stein and Alice B. Toklas taken by Cecil Beaton in the 1930s. Michele C. Cone, "Did Georges Maratier Save Gertrude Stein's Art Collection?", Modernism Modernity, 21 November 2017, Vol. 2, accessible online. Octavo (186 x 126 mm). Later brown quarter morocco by Ole Olsen (with stamp to front pastedown) preserving the original wrappers, red marbled boards, spine lettered in gilt, brown endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. The binding sharp, light browning to contents as often, occasional minor edge wear, else internally clean; a very good copy indeed.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom