JARRY (Alfred). - Lot 78

JARRY (Alfred). Ubu Roi. Drama in five prose acts. Restored in its entirety as performed by the puppets of the Théâtre des Phynances in 1888. Paris: Édition du Mercure de France, 1896. - In-16, Bradel-style ivory parchment, smooth spine, untrimmed, front cover and spine preserved (modern binding). First edition, dedicated to Marcel Schwob, of this famous play by Alfred Jarry, first performed on December 10, 1896 at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre in Paris, "before a scandalized audience that witnessed, without fully understanding it, a double birth: that of a myth and that of a certain modern theater" ("En français dans le texte", no. 322). This was the first text in the Ubu cycle, to be followed by "Ubu cocu" (1897), "Ubu enchaîné" (1900), "Les Almanachs du Père Ubu" (1899 and 1901) and "Ubu sur la Butte" (1906). Gallery owner Ambroise Vollard, a friend of Jarry's, composed suites and variations on the character between 1917 and 1930. "The name Ubu was created by Jarry to give eternal existence to Félix-Frédéric Hébert, a physics teacher, a pot-bellied agrégé and a disastrous pedagogue, who, even before Jarry's arrival at the lycée in Rennes, had provoked a vengeful body of potachic literature. In the eyes of many, he embodied 'all the grotesquerie in the world'" (Idem). The edition is illustrated with two portraits of Father Ubu by Alfred Jarry, including the famous full-page woodcut of the figure in full-length. EXEMPLAIRE OF THE BELGIAN POET VICTOR REMOUCHAMPS (1862-1907), enriched with this autograph dispatch signed by the author on the first blank page: "Exemplaire de Victor Remouchamps // Alfred Jarry". Restoration to front cover. Missing Mercure de France catalog and second cover. Leaves browned and brittle as always. - Two other paperback copies of the same work are enclosed, one bearing a fictitious mention of "Third Edition", complete with Mercure de France catalog, with restorations to the spine, the second with no mention of edition, also complete with catalog but uncropped and with the spine largely missing. Both copies are preserved in a modern slipcase and chemise, one in gray cloth, the other in orange paper.