Imagine if the literary greats of 1920s Paris were not in fact writers but shopkeepers. What type of shop would Colette, author of La Vagabonde, open? And how about Max Jacob, André Gide or Marcel Proust? This is the delightful premise of Prochainement ouverture de 62 boutiques littéraires, a visual jeu d’esprit played by Pierre Mac Orlan, Henri Guilac and Simon Kra. Sixty-two authors from the Parisian literary scene are reimagined standing in the doorway of their own shops, each of which is named after a play on their most famous work.

This, the third book in our Boutiques trilogy, was originally published by Simon Kra in 1925 and featured pochoir illustrations by Henri Guilac, one of the leading satirists at the Le Canard enchaîné and a friend of the literary avant-garde. The book includes an introduction by Pierre Mac Orlan, who also makes an appearance as one of Guilac’s shopkeepers.

Lauren Elkin has written the accompanying essay and discusses the genesis of the book, the life of Guilac and the hallowed place the shopfront holds in Paris, with reference to the surrealists and contemporary photography.

The writers celebrated in the 1920s are not always the ones who are remembered 100 years later; some remain, but others are long forgotten, footnotes in the history of 20th-century literature. Andrew Stewart provides a fascinating insight into the lives of each of the 62 writers, and Neil Philip concludes with notes on the making of the book.

300 Pages / 23 x 19 cm / ISBN 978-0-9576665-9-7
Limited Edition of 500 copies.