Photogénie de l’impondérable

Jean Epstein. Photogénie de l’impondérable. Paris: Éditions Corymbe, 1935. First edition, Bibliophile des Papeteries de France issue, limited to 120 numbered copies, of which this is number fifty-five, following thirty copies on vellum, for a total limitation of 150. Association copy, inscribed by the author for André Robert, who interviewed Epstein for Marianne ("Jean Epstein, metteur en scène littéraire," November 7, 1934): "pour André Robert / en cordial hommage / Jean Epstein." Quarto (9.375 x 7.25 inches; 238 x 184 mm.). 14, [1, printer's note], [1, blank] pages (note: pages [1]-[2] blank). Text unopened. Publisher's saddle-stapled binding, in the original wrappers, printed in red and black. Wrappers faintly tanned in the upper and fore-edge margin (to varying degrees); soft vertical crease down the center, short diagonal creases at the corners; scant marginal soiling; very light foxing on the rear wrapper. The fore-edge corners of the preliminary and terminal blanks with faint discoloration (four instances total), from the outline of tape (presumably securing a supplied glassine, since discarded), one partially affecting the inscription. Very good.

"Epstein builds on the theme of revelation of the world through slow motion, emphasizing in the very title of the text the fact that recorded phenomena reveal themselves over time in unpredictable ways" (Ludovic Cortade, "The 'Microscope of Time': Slow Motion in Jean Epstein's Writings," in Jean Epstein, Amerstam: 2012. p. 170).

Translated by Richard Abel in French Film Theory and Criticism, vol. II (Princeton: 1988. pp. 188-192), as "Photogénie and the Imponderable." "[In the mid 1930s,] the number of books devoted exclusively to the cinema substantially increased, with nearly all of them offering something new. The only exception was Jean Epstein's pamphlet, Photogénie de l'imponderable, whose significance lay in that it summed up nearly fifteen years of his thinking and writing on the cinema" (Abel, p. 147).

Not in Viejo. (#10057).