CHAR (René). Lot n° 19

Les Compagnons dans le jardin. Paris, Louis Broder, 1957. In-12 square, in sheets, printed Japanese paper cover, publisher's folder and slipcase. Partly original edition (five poems of the collection had already been published), illustrated with 4 original color drypoints and aquatints by Zao Wou-Ki. Edition of 130 copies, all printed on Rives vellum and signed by the author and the artist, this one of the 15 numbered in Roman numerals. Superb copy offered by the poet to Marie-Louise Roux (1935-2010), known as mimi: "For mimi, perpetual / star of joy / René Char / Monday, May 26, 1958. It was in 1937 in the Provencal village of Céreste that the poet met the four Roux brothers. During the Occupation, when René Char decided in 1942 to go underground and join the Secret Army, it was in the Céreste maquis that he established his resistance network. Marie-Louise, daughter of one of the Roux brothers, was only seven years old. René Char, twenty-eight years his senior, became attached to this little mimi, a symbol of freshness and hope for a better future. This relationship continued after the war, the poet even interceding on her behalf in 1954 for her enrolment in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. René Char reserved for her booklets published by his friend and publisher Pierre André Benoit, on which he wrote tender letters.