Collected Prose

tables, wedged onto shelves, piled high in closets, these precious objects had overwhelmed the entire space. I spent four or five hours there every afternoon, and it was a bit like working in a museum, a small shrine to the avant-garde.
    Arthur worked in one room and I worked in the other, each of us planted at a desk as we combed through the items for sale and prepared our meticulous catalogue entries on five-by-seven index cards. Anything having to do with French and English was given to me; Arthur handled the German and Russian materials. Typography, design, and architecture were his domain; I was in charge of all things literary. There was a certain fusty precision to the work (measuring the books, examining them for imperfections, detailing provenances when necessary), but many of the items were quite thrilling to hold, and Arthur gave me free rein to express my opinions about them, even to inject an occasional dose of humor if I felt like it. A few examples from the second catalogue will give some idea of what the job entailed:
    233. DUCHAMP, M. & HALBERSTADT, V. L’Opposition et les cases conjuguées sont réconciliées par M. Duchamp et V. Halberstadt. Editions de L’Echiquier. St. Germain-en-Laye and Brussels, 1932. Parallel text in German and English on left-hand pages. 112 double-numbered pp., with 2-color illustrations. 9 5/8 × 11″. Printed paper covers.

The famous book on chess written and designed by Duchamp. (Schwarz, p. 589). Although it is a serious text, devoted to a real chess problem, it is nevertheless so obscure as to be virtually worthless. Schwarz quotes Duchamp as having said: “The endgames on which this fact turns are of no interest to any chess player; and that’s the funniest thing about it. Only three or four people in the world are interested in it, and they’re the ones who’ve tried the same lines of research as Halberstadt and myself, since we wrote the book together. Chess champions never read this book, because the problem it poses never really turns up more than once in a lifetime. These are possible endgame problems, but they’re so rare that they’re almost utopian.” (p. 63).
                                                                             $1000.00
    394. (STEIN, GERTRUDE). Testimony: Against Gertrude Stein. Texts by Georges Braque, Eugene Jolas, Maria Jolas, Henri Matisse, André Salmon, Tristan Tzara. Servire Press. The Hague, February, 1935. (Transition Pamphlet no. 1; supplement to Transition 1934–1935; no 23). 16 pp. 5 11/16 × 8 7/8″. Printed paper covers. Stapled.

In light of the great Stein revival of the Seventies, the continuing value of this pamphlet cannot be denied. It serves as an antidote to literary self-serving and, in its own right, is an important document of literary and artistic history. Occasioned by the inaccuracies and distortions of fact in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Transition produced this forum in order to allow some of the figures treated in Miss Stein’s book to rebut her portrayal of them. The verdict seems to be unanimous. Matisse: “In short, it is more like a harlequin’s costume the different pieces of which, having been more or less invented by herself, have been sewn together without taste and without relation to reality.” Eugene Jolas: “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, in its hollow, tinsel bohemianism and egocentric deformations, may very well become one day the symbol of the decadence that hovers over contemporary literature.” Braque: “Miss Stein understood nothing of what went on around her.” Tzara: “Underneath the ‘baby’ style, which is pleasant enough when it is a question of simpering at the interstices of envy, it is easy to discern such a really coarse spirit, accustomed to the artifices of the lowest literary prostitution, that I cannot believe it necessary for me to insist on the presence of a clinical case of megalomania.” Salmon: “And what confusion! What incomprehension of an epoch! Fortunately there are others who have described it better.” Finally, the piece by Maria Jolas is particularly noteworthy for its detailed description of the early days of Transition. This pamphlet was originally not for sale separately. 
                                                                             $95.00
    437. GAUGUIN, PAUL. Noa