The past speaks to us through the words of great writers. And this experience becomes even more profound when you hold an early edition and touch pages that have been turned for hundreds of years.

As the saying goes, you’ve read a thousand books, you’ve lived a thousand lives. But rare book collectors will tell you that nothing quite equals the experience of owning a piece of history.

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with the Parisian Librairie Benoit Forgeot, whose booksellers have hand-picked for Le Cabinet précieux d’Albertine a fine selection of first editions and other bibliophilic delights for sale.

To inaugurate this new series, we are thrilled to propose a fine group of  20th century books – mainly first editions, most on large paper – with more than 30 books by Samuel Beckett. As a bilingual writer, Beckett embodies the philosophy of Albertine, a French bookstore in the United States.

Our first selection includes among many other wonders:

• A fine inscribed copy of Note I. by Samuel Becket. This first edition is dedicated to Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis Barrault who staged several plays by Beckett, the first in 1963 in Théâtre de l’Odéon: Oh les Beaux Jours (directed by Roger Blin).
• A first edition printed in 327 copies of Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates by Samuel Beckett, inscribed to the French poet Alain Bosquet and published in Paris by Europa Press. 1935.
• A first illustrated edition of Le Grand Écart by Jean Cocteau. It includes 22 drawings by Jean Cocteau, 11 in color. Published in Paris, by Librairie Stock, in 1926.
• A superb dedication copy of Antigone.
• Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel by Jean Cocteau, illustrated with a drawing by the author, 11th edition. Published in Paris, by Gallimard, in 1927.
• A  first edition of  Peau noire, Masques blancs by Frantz Fanon  with a forward by Francis Jeanson, published by éditions du Seuil in Paris in 1952. This is an extremely rare inscribed copy of one of the key books of anti-colonialism, offered to Paul-André Lesort (1915-1997), a writer and co-director of the Collection Esprit at Editions du Seuil.