Description
“HOMMAGE RESPECTUEUX DE L’AUTEUR JEAN DE BRUNHOFF”: RARE FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, OF LE VOYAGE DE BABAR, 1932, INSCRIBED BY JEAN DE BRUNHOFF TO ELEANOR EWING, WHOM HE MET WHILE ATTEMPTING TO CURE HIS TUBERCULOSIS IN SWITZERLAND
BRUNHOFF, Jean de. Le Voyage de Babar. Paris: Editions du Jardin des Modes, Groupe des Publications Condé Nast, 1932. Folio (11 by 15 inches), original half red cloth, pictorial blue paper boards, pictorial endpapers.
First edition, presentation copy, of the second Babar book, with the author’s wonderful color illustrations, inscribed on the title page by Brunhoff to Eleanor Kitty Andrews Ewing, whom Brunhoff met in Vermala, Switzerland while she was on a mountaineering holiday and he was attempting to recover from tuberculosis: “A Madame Eleanor Ewing. En souvenir de Vermala. Hommage respecteuex de l’auteur Jean de Brunhoff.”
“If there is a universal symbol for childhood, Babar the elephant is probably it… The inspiration for Babar came from Madame de Brunhoff, Jean’s wife, who told stories about a little elephant to amuse her young children. Their enthusiasm for the tales encouraged their artist father to shape them into illustrated books… The original Babar books were oversized in format, with the text printed in script. Subsequent editions have taken every imaginable shape and form, but the luxuriously large volumes are still the best way to fully appreciate Jean de Brunhoff’s mastery of the picture-book form. His books, as Maurice Sendak once observed, ‘have a freedom and charm, a freshness of vision, that captivates and takes the breath away… Between 1931 and 1937, he completed a body of work that forever changed the face of the illustrated book” (Silvey, 191). Text in French. This rare presentation copy is inscribed to Eleanor “Kitty” Andrews, who married Alfred Washington Ewing in 1912. Her husband was the son of the Scottish physicist and engineer Sir James Alfred Ewing. The younger Ewing was a keen mountaineer and liked to take his wife and children to Switzerland on holiday. Brunhoff evidently met Eleanor Ewing there. Montana-Vermala was an area with several sanatoria in addition to the ski resort that had no doubt drawn the Ewings there. Brunhoff spent substantial periods of time in Switzerland, attempting to recuperate from tuberculosis, like many of the period who believed that the thin mountain air and cold temperatures were healthy for their diseased lungs. Unfortunately, Brunhoff died in Vermala on October 16, 1937, succumbing to his illness. After Brunhoff’s death, his son Laurent continued the series. As a result of his untimely death, presentation copies of Babar books signed by Jean de Brunhoff are considered to be extremely rare.
Only a few spots of foxing to unusually clean interior, superficial scratching to boards (less than usual). An exceptional near-fine presentation copy, most rare and desirable inscribed.
