Burnside Rare Books

Enfance. [From My Childhood: Woodcuts]

Bochorakova-Dittrichova, Helena

Vyskov [Brno]: Obzina, for Dorbon-Aine, Paris, 1930.

First edition in French, and one of 310 copies. Bound in publisher's original cream paper boards stamped in black. Small octavo. Near Fine with toning to covers, bump to top corner and browning to pages. In a Near Fine dust jacket with light toning, light edge wear and several light scratches to the rear panel.

A graphic novel illustrated with ninety-four woodcuts and text in French. The first edition of Bochoráková-Dittrichová's autobiographical tale of middle-class life in Moravia (a rural region of The Czech Republic) was printed in an edition of sixty copies only in Czechoslovakia in 1929 under the title, Z Mého Detství, From my Childhood. This French edition came next, followed by an English-language version in 1931. This, her first work, is also the first graphic novel published by a woman. A significant though obscure early graphic novel. Item #140944257

Price: $6,000.00