Apollinaire Lettres calligrammes manuscrits, the latest book by Professor Peter Read has attracted considerable interest in the French media.
The manuscripts revealed by Apollinaire Lettres calligrammes manuscrits have been described in the media as ‘fragile treasures and an essential part of France’s national heritage’. Inventor of picture-poems and of the word ‘surrealism’, Apollinaire is also France’s most important war poet.
The documents in the book provide an intimate, close-up view of the poet’s life and working methods covering his whole creative trajectory, from an early poem written at the age of fourteen to his final works composed after he was wounded by shrapnel in a front-line trench.
The book’s publication has been widely reported in French newspapers and magazines and has been presented by Professor Read on Radio France Internationale and on French TV’s main literary talk show.
A large-format, illustrated hard-back, it has been co-published by the French National Library (Bibliothèque nationale de France) and Éditions Textuel. The book features full-size, colour facsimiles of over 100 manuscripts by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), including previously unpublished works, from private collections and public archives.
The manuscripts have been selected, transcribed and presented, with introductions and commentaries, by Professor Read, Professor of Modern French Literature and Visual Arts at the School of European Culture and Languages and founding Director of the University’s Paris School of Arts and Culture.