JACOB, Max (1876-1944)

JACOB, Max (1876-1944)

Autograph manuscript signed « Max Jacob » : Cornet à dés : adde
N.p., [Fall 1931], 7 p. ½ in-4°, on the recto only, in black ink
Numerous typographical annotations for publication, autograph note by Jean Paulhan (editor of La NRF) at the upper right corner of the first leaf, a few minor stains, tiny marginal losses

Important and complete manuscript of Cornet à dés: adde, used for its publication in La Nouvelle Revue Française, December 1931

Jean Paulhan approached Max Jacob in the autumn of 1931 for poems in the spirit of Cornet à dés (1917), intended for publication in La Nouvelle Revue Française. In a card sent to Paulhan in October 1931, Jacob confirmed that he was busy “gathering together whatever poems he had in verse or prose” (Max Jacob – Jean Paulhan – Correspondance 1915-1941, ed. Anne Kimball, Paris Méditerranée, 2006, p. 170). The poet subsequently sent Paulhan these eight leaves, bringing together thirty-three prose poems (some in the form of aphorisms), which would appear in La Nouvelle Revue Française of 1 December 1931 (pp. 868-872). It can be observed that Paulhan’s guidelines were followed: three proposed prose poems were not retained and remain unpublished (“Un vieux peintre…”; “Les Magazines”; “Une gargouille de N. D…”). The title of the first poem, “Un Roi en exil,” was removed, leaving only the subtitle, which became the poem’s general title; one aphorism was struck through by the author (f. 5). At the upper left corner of the first leaf appear the compositors’ instructions for typesetting. The tailpieces requested by Jacob were altered by a red line marked by Jean Paulhan.

Of the thirty-three poems submitted here by Jacob, thirty were ultimately retained for the 1931 publication, then reprinted in the 1945 edition of Cornet à dés published by Éditions Gallimard (pp. 236-242): the chapter heading under which they appear is that of the manuscript (CORNET À DÉS: ADDE). They were finally reprinted in the 2012 edition (Max Jacob, Œuvres, Gallimard, coll. Quarto, pp. 430-434), with the exception of the aphorism “Mes vêtements sur la chaise étaient un pantin, un pantin mort,” omitted due to a digitization oversight.

From 1945 onward, the publisher adopted a rule of publishing the poems according to the definitive edition and composition revised by the author. In 1955, the edition of Cornet à dés II, compiled and introduced by André Salmon, would bring together a set of poems that had remained in manuscript form, given by Jacob to friends in the course of his correspondence, or, for a few, published in periodicals during his lifetime.

Regarding the title Cornet à dés: adde, the poet explained himself on a copy of Cornet à dés illuminated for Paul Bonet in 1943, to which he had added numerous unpublished poems: “The poems I am adding to this, in manuscript, form a set which I entitle ‘Cornet à dés…addé.’ This set is indefinitely extensible” (BnF Réserve des livres rares, RES 8-NFZ-16, on the half-title page).