Insel-Bücherei - John Heartfield. Fotomontagen... Lot n° 326

Published by Roland März. Leipzig, Island 1978. 30 full-page and one double-page illustration. Original paperback with cover and spine label and orange patterned cover paper. One of only two (!) copies. - Within the island library exist, more or less known, very rare editions. Most of them are the so-called "war-destroyed" volumes, about a dozen titles, which were destroyed in a bombing raid on Leipzig in 1943 in the island camp and in printing houses and bookbinderies, among them the legendary volume 313 [2] "Gedichte des deutschen Barock". The reason for the near "non-existence" of the present volume 1023 is much more banal: after printing the edition (25,000 copies) and binding a few advance copies (so-called "Aushänger") for examination, the artist's widow and the editor surprisingly objected to the retouching and the illustrations printed in shades of grey, which would "falsify" the workshop character of the glued copies. "The bookbindery was then instructed to maculate the raw sheets and proceeded with such an untypical GDR haste that the former production manager, Hans-Joachim Walch, who arrived on site a little later, was unable to save anything. What remained were the few [according to the latest research by Herbert Kästner only two] signal copies, which were hung by hand into the prepared covers by the publisher. (Herbert Kästner, in: Mitteilungen für Freude der IB, Number 8, pages 37ff.) - One of the two copies was in the possession of Hans-Joachim Walch (1927-1991), acquired by Herbert Kästner from his estate. - With the colored Herfurth wood engraving bookplate "Insel-Bücherei Herbert Kästner". 18.5 : 12.0 cm. 4], 54, [2] pages. - Joints minimally rubbed. Cf. Jenne II, 533 (ills. 1419/1420)