Description
JARRY (Alfred).
Le Surmâle.
Paris: Le Club français du livre, 1963. — Small folio, 300 x 250: (2 blank folios), 261 pp., (5 blank folios at the beginning and end), unmarked cover. Unbound, cover mounted, with the publisher’s slipcase and dust jacket.
An edition of 226 copies, illustrated with 31 copperplate engravings by Louis Mitelberg, known as TIM (1919–2002), an artist, caricaturist and sculptor of Polish origin.
This text is the last novel published during Alfred Jarry’s lifetime, written in 1901 and published in 1902. The story opens with a provocative sentence: ‘Love is an act of no importance, since one can do it indefinitely’. To prove the existence of a ‘super-male’, capable of exceptional amorous feats, the chemist William Elson organises a 10,000-mile cycle race (Paris–Irkutsk) using his ‘perpetual-motion food’. A mysterious shadow—the ‘supermale’—competes against the cyclists, leaving behind the corpses of women. Once captured, he achieves the ultimate feat: 82 times, breaking all records.
Africa is not the central theme of the book, but it is mentioned in various passages, notably on pages 28 and 31 (‘ I have only been to Africa in times of peace”), and 33 (“the scholars, as you have heard, stick to the opinion of the savages of central Africa…”). On pages 169 and 170, Jarry also uses the word ‘nègre’ on two occasions.
One of the first 10 copies printed on hand-made paper from the Moulin Richard de Bas; this copy, bearing the number 1, is the only one to feature an original drawing signed by the artist and a crossed-out copperplate. The drawing is framed here.
Stains on the cover and the slipcase.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale
Claude Mozis Library – Black Africa and the African diaspora
Auction location
Auction time
10/21/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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