Les Roses

Les Editions Lucie Lambert has issued its tenth book in the spring of 2004, a new bilingual edition of Rainer Maria Rilke's Les Roses. The 24 poems were originally published in 1927 by Joh. Enschedé in Zonen, Haarlem for the Halcyon Press, and included a preface by Paul Valéry. This new edition presents the poems in French and new English translations by Douglas G. Jones, with a preface by Yvon Rivard, “who 28 years ago authored my first book, Frayère, and who now has written this edition's 15-page preface.”

The seeds of the project were planted in 1986, when Lambert was given a copy of the original edition by a friend, the print and book collector Robert Stéhelin of Strasbourg. “ I would have never known at that time that I would be producing a new edition of the same book, accompanied with my images, 18 years later. However, it came to me one day as I was reading the poems in this beautiful edition that this is what I had to do to honour the memory of my dear friend”, Lambert says.

Les Roses (7 x 10 inches, 26 french-fold leaves) was handset in 18 point Nicolas Cochin and printed by Martin Dufour on Japanese Tairei paper with a Vandercook cylinder press in Montreal. He also printed the woodcuts of the roses. The type fonts were cast by Jim Rimmer who created the French accents. The preface was offset printed on Mohawk Ticonderoga paper at Filigrane's in Montreal. The overall design and layout was a collaboration between Robert Reid and Martin Dufour. Les Roses is presented in loose gatherings contained in a box made by Pierre Ouvrard, the master Quebecois bookbinder. The edition is 63 numbered copies, 24 are deluxe, the boxes for which are covered in various delicate colours of suede goat skin. The boxes of the regular edition of 33 copies are covered in an exquisite red Japanese cloth. Six copies are hors commerce.

From:
the Heavenly Monkey Press Newsletter #4, winter 2004, by Rollin Milroy