MORCEAUX CHOISIS DE LA FABRICATION DES AMERICAINS

Paris: Éditions de la Montagne, 1929. First printing. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. Limited first French edition of these excerpts from Stein's expatriate classic MAKING OF AMERICANS - translated by Surrealist George Hugnet alongside Stein, and prefaced by his note disavowing knowledge of the English language. A translation of Stein's great modernist novel for her French associates, produced in collaboration with Hugnet. In addition to these selections, Hugnet co-translated Stein's DIX PORTRAITS, one of which was a portrait of himself. Stein proposed to reciprocate by translating Hugnet's own ENFANCES, and described the endeavor in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS as follows: "Hugnet wrote a poem called Enfance. Gertrude Stein offered to translate it for him but instead she wrote a poem about it. This at first pleased Georges Hugnet too much and then did not please him at all. Gertrude Stein then called the poem Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded. Everybody mixed themselves up in all this." Scarce in original glassine. 9.75'' x 6.5''. Original cream wrappers. In original printed cream dust jacket and original glassine. 121, [4] pages. Most leaves unopened. Of a total edition of 300, 200 copies were printed on Alfa and numbered 101-300; this copy no. 127. Light edgewear, toning to jacket edges and spine. A few small chips and closed tears to glassine.