Les trois impostures, édition originale

FIRST DRAFT AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT of Les Trois Impostures by Paul-Jean Toulet, with the date June 12, 1915, written at the top of the first page. Paul-Jean Toulet died in 1920, leaving behind a prolific body of work that should have been published during his lifetime. Unfortunately, the war intervened, and the collection Toulet had begun was not completed until the (primarily) posthumous first editions of his counter-rhymes, songs, poems, and other aphorisms. Begun as early as 1915, Les Trois Impostures was not published by Le Divan until 1922, by Henri Martineau, one year after Les Contrerimes. This autograph manuscript contains an early version of numerous aphorisms, thoughts, maxims, and short texts by Toulet, with each entry numbered. Here, the numbering ends at entry no. 133 (the original contains 305), but the manuscript continues at length, without numbering. One discovers both hesitations and flashes of brilliance, with a few rare entries escaping deletion. The title itself undergoes changes in its structure, with notes regarding the future layout: L'Almanach des Trois Impostures then Les Trois Impostures before what would become the title of the original, Les Trois Impostures - almanach Of the 74 pages numbered in pencil, the last 8 begin on the back of the notebook and include, in addition to a new version of certain texts, an outline of the Contrerimes that Jean de Buzelet would reproduce in an article he contributed to issue 31 of the journal Le Livre et l'Estampe in 1962, of which we include the offprint. This manuscript is also enriched by two typewritten letters addressed to Jean de Buzelet, one from Pierre-Olivier Walzer (author of a study on Toulet) and the other from Auguste Lambiotte, president of the Société des Bibliophiles de Belgique, in response to Buzelet’s requests for clarification regarding the meaning of the Latin dedication in the Contrerimes. Finally, we include the subscription form produced by Éditions du Divan for *Les Contrerimes* and *Les Trois Impostures*. On the cover, one can read the ex dono inscription by Léon Barthou, Louis’s brother and a native of Pau like Toulet: “A few days before his death, Toulet gave me this manuscript. I offer it to Francis Carco, who spoke of our friend in such moving terms.” (Séjour des Morts, 1936).