Publishing, the Rules of the Trade

Jéou-P’ou-T’ouan

Li-Yu, Cercle du Livre Précieux, original edition, 1962, Coll. Particulière

‘Le Cercle du livre précieux wishes to react against the greatest hypocrisy of the century. The land where Gaulish tradition paradoxically goes hand in hand with excessive prudishness in matters of erotica (an enduring taboo in spite of the most daring conquests of the modern novel) has always been opposed to the revelation of great monuments of erotic literature of the past (…). We have no intention of joining the commerce of ‘under the counter’ literature, whose vulgarity is equalled by the low standard of presentation and poverty of style. But we do intend to make certain old masterpieces known to the cultivated man of our times.’ Cercle du livre précieux, Editorial programme, November 1959, quoted by Alban Cerisier, ‘Le Phénomène des clubs’, Pascal Fouché (Ed), Histoire de l’édition française, Cercle de la Librairie, 1998, p. 142.