Drames de cinéma

Louis Delluc. Drames de cinéma. La Fete Espagnole, Le Silence, Fievre, La Femme de Nulle Part. Paris: Aux éditions du monde nouveau, 1923. First edition, limited to 500 numbered copies, with 480 on Alfa, of which this is number 332, following 20 grands papiers copies. Association copy, inscribed by author on the half-title: "pour Henry de Forge / son ami / Louis Lelluc." Octavo (7.5 x 5.5 inches; 191 x 140 mm.). [2, blank], [6], xix, [1, blank], 130, [2, contents (impremerie on verso)], [2, blank] pages. Illustrated with frontispiece and fourteen additional plates, depicting films stills or poster art, inserted throughout; full-page and in-text illustrations. Publisher's binding in the original wrappers printed in red and black with a woodcut illustration of Ève Francis (Delluc's wife, who starred in most of his films, also a frequent collaborator of Marcel L'Herbier and Germaine Dulac), priced 5 francs on the spine; text block untrimmed (and partially unopened); no endpapers. Hinges strengthened by gluing the wrappers to the preliminary and terminal blanks in the gutter, stabilizing a tear at the bottom of the front joint; tape reinforcement along the fore-edge of the front wrapper (the work of a professional). Backstrip and margins faintly tanned, with some very light soiling and a few fox marks; light marginal creasing; two vertical creases to the spine. Page edges lightly darkened with faint intermittent foxing. Very good. Text in French.

Henry de Forge (1874-1943) was a French man of letters and author of several books. Louis Delluc died the March following the publication of this book (in 1924) at the age of 33; he probably didn't get to sign too many more.

"Even though much of his time was taken up now with writing and directing a series of fiction films, Delluc also continued to turn out a small set of published books on the cinema. These included... probably the first collection of original film scripts in Drames de cinéma" (Abel, French Film Theory and Criticism, vol. I, Princeton: 1993. p. 197). (#10054).