Saturday, 10 January 2015

Cendrars

I am haunted by no phantoms. It is rather that the ashes I stir up contain the crystallization that hold the image (reduced or synthetic) of the living and impure beings that they constituted before the intervention of the fire. If life has a meaning, this image (from the beyond?) has perhaps some significance. That is what I should like to know. And it is why I write." 

Blaise Cendrars
1961: three days after receiving the Paris Grand Prix, confined to a wheelchair following a series of strokes, Blaise Cendrars dies.
The world, in that instant, grows perceptibly smaller.



















1.

BLAISE CENDRARS
"Whenever Cendrars appeared, life shed its conventions and turned marvelous," said friend Jacques-Henry Lévesque.
    Back then I was still young
    I was barely sixteen but my childhood memories were gone
    I was  miles away from where I was born
    I was in Naples, city of a thousand and three bell towers and a thousand whores
    And my eyes were shining down those old roads
    And I was already such a bad artist
    That I didn't know how to take it all the way

‘What a writer learns from Cendrars is to follow his nose, to obey life’s commands, to worship no other god but life.’ – Henry Miller


One of the greatest literary injustices of our time is the relative obscurity of the French writer Blaise Cendrars, poet, novelist, soldier, mechanic, traveller, film-maker. He deserves to be recognized as one of the most original and outrageous writers of the early twentieth century.
Swiss poet and novelist, who wrote in French and spent much of his life traveling restlessly. Blaise Cendrars did his best to fictionalize his past and his biographers have had much difficulties separating fact from fabulations: "truth is imaginary", he once said. Cendrars's most famous novels, Sutter's Gold and Moravagine, both from 1926, have been translated into more than twenty languages.

“I straighten my papers
I set up a schedule
My days will be busy
I don't have a minute to lose
I write.”

(from Complete Poems, 1992, tr. Ron Padgett)

Blaise Cendrars was born Frédéric Louis Sauser in the small city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. His parents were both Swiss but later Cendrars claimed that his mother was Scottish, and he was born on an Italian railway train during his mother's journey back from Egypt. Cendrars was educated in Neuchâtel, and later in Basle and Berne. At the age of 15 he ran way home – according to a story he escaped from his parents but another version tells his family gave up keeping him in school. Cendrars worked in Russia as an apprentice watchmaker and was there during the Revolution of 1905. In 1907 he entered the university of Berne but settled in 1910 in Paris, adopting French citizenship.

During his life Cendrars worked worked at a variety of jobs – as a film maker, journalist, art critic, and businessman. Before becoming writer he even tried horticulture and never stopped trying to earn his living by extra-literary activities. His cosmopolitan wanderings Cendrars used as a way to discover inner truths.
In World Authors 1900-1950 (vol. 1, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens, 1996) he wrote that in his youth he traveled widely in China, Mongolia, Siberia, Persia, the Caucasus and Russia, and later in the Unites States, Canada, South America, and Africa. Some doubts have arisen whether he stoked trains in China in his youth, but perhaps this is more important from the biographical point of view than literary – the memoirs of Marco Polo, Cellini and Casanova and the autobiographical novels of Jean Genet and Henri Charrière are read in spite of reliability in all biographical details. Like the protagonist of Les confessions de Dan Yack (1928), Cendrars was a man of action, who avoided "literary" flavor in his prose, and a man of contemplation, who had almost obsessive need for exotic experiences. In Les Pâques à New York (1912, Easter in New York) he said: "Still, Lord, I took a dangerous voyage / To see a beryl intaglio of your image. / Lord, make my face, buried in my hands, / Leave there its agonizing mask." The poems was was prompted by his penniless stay in New York
and mixed despair with excitement of modern city living.
Cendrars was considered along with Apollinaire, whom he deeply influenced, a leading figure in the literary avant-garde before and after World War I. In his early experimental poems Cendrars used pieces of newsprint, the multiple focus, simultaneous impressions, and other modernist techniques. La prose du Transibérien et de la petite Jeanne de France (1913), a combination of travelogue and lament, was printed on two-meter pages with parallel abstract paintings by the Russian-born painter Sonia Delaunay. Le Panama ou les aventures de mes sept oncles (1918) was in the form of a pocket timetable. Cendrars was closely associated with Cubism but he also published poetry Jacques Vache's Lettres de guerre, which was edited by Philippe Soupault, André Breton and Louis Aragon – founders of surrealism in literature.
Prose of the Transsiberian & of Little Jeanne of France contains impressions from Cendrars's real or imaginary journey from Moscow to Manchuria during the 1905 Revolution and Sino-Russian War. As the train of the title speeds through the vast country, Cendrars mixes with its movement images of war, apocalyptic visions of disaster, and fates of people wounded by the great events. With Abel Gance he cooperated in J'Accuse (1919), an antiwar documentary, and La Roue (1921-24), originally a nine-hour movie of a railwayman, which is acclaimed for its innovative cutting.
Cendrars traveled incessantly and after 1914 became involved in the movie industry in Italy, France, and the United States. During World War I Cendrars joined the army. He served as a corporal and lost in 1915 in combat on the Marne front his right arm.
Cendrars's first wife was Féla Poznanska; they had three children. In 1924 Cendrars met in Paris the American writers John Dos Passos and Hemingway. Ten years later he became friends with Henry Miller; their correspondence was published in 1995 in English. Miller hailed him as the man "exploding in all directions at once." During a two-week stay in 1936 in Hollywood he wrote his impressions for Paris-Soir in series of articles which were collected in Hollywood, la mecque du cinéma (1936). It depicts with wry humour the movie industry and the town's people. Films were one of Cendrars's passions. In the 1930s Cendrars planned to travel round the world to film such phenomena as levitation and ritual dances. By 1925 Cendrars had ceased to publish poetry. His famous prose works in the 1920s include L'or (Sutter's Gold), a fictionalized story of John Sutter, a Swiss pioneer, who started the great gold rush in the northern California, built there his own empire but died in poverty. According to a literary anecdote, Stalin kept this book on his night table. Sutter's Gold can be read as the author's exploration of his inner self, like the semi-autobiographical novel Moravagine ('Death to the vagina'), which followed a madman, a descendant of the last King of Hungary, and a young doctor on their worldwide adventures from the Russian Revolution and to the First World War. Moravinge's madness becomes comparable with the dissolution of world and the chaotic disorder of life. "There is no truth. There's only action, action obeying a million different impulses, ephemeral action, action subjected to every possible imaginable contingency and contradiction. Life." Moravigne dies in an another asylum and the manuscript of the story finds it way to Cendrars, one of the characters in it.
The Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein tried to arose Hollywood's interest in Sutter's Gold on his trip there in the 1930s. The director William Wyler obtained a scenario that Eisenstein had prepared and read plays based on the life of Sutter, including Bruno Frank's The General and the Gold and Caesar von Arx's John Augustus Sutter. Cendrars offered Wyler his services as a screenwriter, and hopefully wrote: "Should this film be succesful, I have several other first-class American scenarios." After Universal engaged William Anthony McGuire, Cendrars offered to read the script "absolutely gratis." However, Wyler was pulled off the project and Howard Hawks was assigned to it. Eventually James Cruze directed the film version, which was released in 1936. It was one of the studio's major flops of the year, and started the exit of Carl Laemmle from the chairman's office. Most of the action footage was reused in Mutiny on the Blackhawk (1939).
During the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944 Cendrars was listed as a Jewish writer of "French expression". His younger son was killed in an accident while escorting American planes in Morocco. Cendrars started to publish in the late 1940s memoirs, which combined travel fantasies with colorful episodes from his life. In L'homme foudroyé (1945, The Astonished Man) Cendrars walks around between lines of World War I trenches, spends time with gypsies in a travelling theatre, and attempts to drive across a South American swamp. "I am haunted by no phantoms. It is rather that the ashes I stir up contain the crystallization that hold the image (reduced or synthetic) of the living and impure beings that they constituted before the intervention of the fire. If life has a meaning, this image (from the beyond?) has perhaps some significance. That is what I should like to know. And it is why I write."
In 1949 Cendrars married Raymone Duchateau, an actress who he had first met the late 1910s. Cendrars's final novel was Emmène-moi au bout du monde! (1953, To the End of the World), set in the Parisian theater world of the late 1940s. In 1957 he had a stroke. Cendrars received the Paris Grand Prix for literature in 1961, a recognition which almost came too late. Blaise Cendrars died a few days later on January 21, 1961, in Paris.

.
Blaise Cendrars , pseudonym of Frederic-Louis Sauser(September 1st, 1887 - January 21st, 1961), is a writer of Swiss origin, naturalized French in 1916.
Very early, it placed its work under the sign of the voyage and the adventure. In its Poetry as in its works in Prose, the exaltation of the modern world mixes at his place with the will to create a legend where the imaginary one mixes with the inextricable reality of way.
Engaged in the French Army like foreign volunteer, it takes part in the First World War. September 28th, 1915, it loses with the combat its right hand, its hand of writer, amputated above the elbow. This wound marks the work of Cendrars deeply. While making him discover its identity of left-handed person, it upset his report/ratio with the writing.

Biography

Years of training

Frederic-Louis Sauser was born on September 1st, 1887 with La Chaux-de-Fonds (Canton of Neuchâtel), in a middle-class family of Bernese origin but French-speaking. The voyages of his/her father, an unstable business man, make lead to the family an itinerant life, in particular to Naples. Envoy in boarding school inGermany, Freddy running away. With Neuchâtel, his/her parents register it at the Business school for studies which are little of its taste.
In 1904, its bad school results make it send in training to Moscowand especially to Saint-Pétersbourg, then in full revolutionary effervescence. Until 1907, it works there in a Swiss clock and watch maker. With the imperial Library, of which it becomes one accustomed, a librarian, R.R., encourage it to write. Freddy starts to note his readings, his thoughts.
He would then have written the Legend of Novgorode, the white gold and silence . To make him a surprise, R.R. would have translated it into Russian and makes print with 14 specimens in white on black paper. The alive one of Cendrars, nobody forever considering this book which it however made appear at the head all his bibliographies starting from Séquences (1913). Many doubted its existence, when a Bulgarian poet discovered a specimen of it, in 1995, in a secondhand bookseller of Sofia. Since then, the authenticity of this plate is the subject of controversies, which enriches mythology by the poet of new episodes.
In 1907 Freddy Sauser returns to Switzerland. Studying medicine at the university of Bern, it perhaps met Adolf Wölfli, interned with the asylum of Waldau. This schizophrene violate who is a genious draftsman could be one of the models of Moravagine, the " large deer humain" who will obsess Cendrars like a double during long years. As for academic works, they bring little answers to the questions which haunt it on the man, its psychism, its behavior. Under the influence of the Latin mystic Remy de Gourmont, it writes his first poems: Sequences . of
After a short stay in Paris, it turns over in 1911, for a few months, with Saint-Pétersbourg. It written its first novel there,Moganni Nameh which will appear only in 1922, in serial, in the review free Sheets . It is plunged in Schopenhauer; a formula of this philosopher illuminates his report/ratio with reality: “the world is my representation”. From now on, the life and poetry will be for him communicating vases.

Entry of modernity

End 1911, Freddy embarks for New York where it joined a friend, Féla Poznanska, a Polish Jewish coed whom it met in Bern. He will marry it thereafter and she will be the mother of her three children, Odilon, Rémy and Miriam. Its stay in the United States shows him the way, news and subjected to the laws of mechanics, speed, of the modernity, in which the world engages. With leaving one night of wandering, it writes its first long poem, Easter in New York , a poem founder of modern poetry. To sign it he invents a pseudonym: Blaise Cendrars .
It returns to Paris during the summer 1912, convinced of its poetic vocation. With Emil Szittya, an anarchistic writer , it founds the New men , a review and a publisher where it publishesEaster , then Séquences , a collection of older poems of declining inspiration, marked by the influence of Remy de Gourmontwhich it admires like a Master. Séquences belongs more to Freddy Sauser that in Cendrars, even if it signs it of his pseudonym. It binds friendship with artistic and literary personalities: Apollinaire and artists of the school of Paris, Chagall, Leger, Survage, Modigliani, Csaky, Archipenko, Robert. In 1913, it publishes the Prose of Trans-Siberian and the small Jeanne de France , with compositions colors of Sonia Delaunay-Terk. In this first simultaneous book, the text and the image are narrowly overlapping to create a new artistic emotion, which will be at the origin of a sharp polemic. This two meters height poem-table, presented in the form of folder, is recognized today as a major contribution to the history of the book. To the declaration of the war, Cendrars launches with the Italian writer Ricciotto Canudo a call to the foreign artists who live in France, and engages like volunteer in the French Army . Poured in the Foreign legion, it loses its right-hand man during the great Champagne offensive, on September 28th, 1915.

The poet of the left hand

After a “terrible year”, the poet penguin goes back to write left hand and it publishes the War in Luxembourg (1916). It is naturalized meanwhile French, on February 16th, 1916. During the summer 1917, which it passes to Méréville, it discovers its new identity of man and poet of the left hand, while writing, during its “more beautiful night of writing”, on September 1st,the End of the world filmed by the Angel NR. - D. Commence then an intense creative working life placed under the guardian sign of the constellation of Orion, in which the right hand of the poet was exiled. In I killed (1918), first book illustrated by Fernand Leger,he writes some of the strongest pages and more dérangeantes which was written on the war:
Thousand million individuals devoted me all their one day activity, their force, their talent, their science, their intelligence, their practices, their feelings, their heart. And here that today I have the knife with the hand. Eustace de Bonnot. “Humanity Lives! ” I palpate a cold summoned truth of a sharp blade. I am right. My young sporting past could be enough. Me here tended nerves, bandaged muscles, ready to leap in reality. I faced the torpedo, the gun, the mines, fire, the gases, the machine-guns, all the machinery anonymous, démoniaque, systematic, blind. I will face the man. My similar. A monkey. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. With us two now. With punches, stabs. Without mercy. I jump on my antagonist. I carry a terrible blow to him. The head is almost separated. I killed Boche. I was sharper and more rapid that him. More direct. I struck the first. I have feel reality, me, poet. I acted. I killed. As that which wants vivre.
With Profond today (1917) the poet of the left hand publishes his proclamation by presenting a poetic vision of modernity. Also poems written before war appear: its third poem " homérique" or " whitmanien" , Panama or adventures of my seven uncles(1918), as well as the Nineteen elastic poems 1919). (
Moving away from Paris, it takes leave of the literary circles of avant-garde (Dada, then Surréalisme) whose polemics appear to him exceeded to turn to the cinema. He becomes the assistant of Abel Gance for I show , where he also holds a role of appear, then for the Wheel . In 1921, it passes itself to the realization to Rome, but the experiment is a failure.
As much of artists and writers at that time, it is impassioned for the Africa and compiles in its negro Anthologie (1921) of the tales of oral tradition, than it is the first to be regarded as literature. For the Swedish Ballets it draws from this collection the argument of the Creation of the World (1923), with a music of Darius Milhaud, decorations and costumes of Fernand Leger.

Discovered Brazil

In January 1924, it goes to the Brésil to the invitation of Paulo Prado, business man and patron of the modernistic poets of SãoPaulo, among which Oswald de Andrade and Mario de Andrade. In a country where nature as well as the population agree to its major aspirations, he discovers his “Utopialand” which he will often celebrate in his books. He will go back there by twice, from January in June 1926 and August 1927 in January 1928. He binds to it in particular with the poets Manuel Bandeira andCarlos Drummond de Andrade, like with the painters Cicero Dias and especially Tarsila C Amaral, which he names “most beautiful Pauliste of the world”.
In 1924, it publishes Kodak (Documentary) . It will be necessary to await the Années 1970 to discover that Cendrars had composed these poems by joining by cutting out and refitting fragments of the Mystérieux Doctor Cornélius , a popular novel of Gustave the Red. He wanted to thus show with his friend, who he is him also a poet. The same year, appears Roadmaps , its last collection of poems, illustrated by Tarsila Amaral.

Novel with journalism

To the return of the Brazil, it launches out in the novel. In a few weeks, he writes Gold (1925), where he recalls the tragedy destiny of Johann August Suter, Swiss millionaire of origin ruined by the discovery of gold on its grounds in California. This world success will make of him, during the Twenties, a novelist of the adventure. Follow soon Moravagine (1926), then the Plan of the Needle and the Confessions of Dan Yak which misses the Goncourt.
A fictionalized life of the adventurer Jean Galmot ( Rum - The Adventure of Jean Galmot , 1930) makes him discover the world of journalism. In the the Thirties, it becomes international reporter to explore the hollows ( Panorama of the underworld , 1935). His/her friend Pierre Lazareff, the owner of Paris-Evening, sends it to take share with the inaugural voyage of the steamerNormandy , then to visit Hollywood, Mecque of the cinema . For the same period, it collects in three volumes of “true stories the” news which it published in the large press. In December 1934, it meets Henry Miller which will become one of his/her friends.
In 1939, when the war bursts, it engages as war correspondent near the British Armée. Its reports appear in particular in Paris-Evening and the book that it draws some, At the English army , will be rammed by the German . Deeply affected by the rout, it leaves Paris and journalism to withdraw with Aix-en-Provenceduring all the Occupation. During three years it ceases writing.

The rhapsode of the memories

Following a visit of the novelist Edouard Peisson, it leaves silence finally on August 21st, 1943 and begins the Man struck down(1945) which will follow The cut Hand Bourlinguer and the Allotment of the Sky . These volumes of “memories which are memories without being memories” form a tetralogy; they are composed as of the rhapsodies by Cendrars which joins again thus with the musical formation of its youth.
At the time of this return to the writing, a young unknown photographer, Robert Doisneau, are sent to Aix to make a report on Cendrars. It illustrates the article that Maximilien Vox publishes in 1945 in the Open door , the review of the free-Swedish chamber of commerce, under a title which summarizes these years of war well: Cendrars, a solitary elephant . Four years later, in 1949, Cendrars write the text of the first album of Doisneau: Suburbs of Paris , which reveals a large photographer.
In 1944, Cendrars, which has not written any more poems for twenty years, collected its complete Poésies at Denoël, with the assistance and a foreword of his/her friend Jacques-Henry Lévesque remained in Paris.
In January 1948, it leaves Aix-en-Provence for Villefranche-sur-Mer. Young poets come to visit him: Andre Miguel, Frederic Jacques Temple.
The following year, on October 27th, 1949, it Marie with Raymone Duchâteau, with Sigriswil in Bernese Oberland. Since it met this young actress in October 1917, it dedicates to him a love idealized, not without ambivalence, passed through many crises.
The same year 1949, it publishes the Allotment of the sky , last volume of the memories, which joins together the two figures of Joseph de Cupertino, the flying saint of the XVIIe century, and Oswaldo Padroso, a Brazilian fazendeiro which was caught of an insane love for Sarah Bernhardt. The prayer to insert volume holds of the profession of faith:
I wanted to indicate to young people of today that they are misled, that the life is not a dilemma and that between the two contrary ideologies between which one summons them to choose, it there with the life, the life, with his upsetting and miraculous contradictions, the unlimited life and his possibilities, his nonsenses much more amusing than idiocies and flatnesses of the “policy”, and than it is for the life that they must choose, in spite of the attraction of the suicide, individual or collective, and of its striking down logical scientist. There are not other possible choices. To live!

Return to Paris

In 1950, it turns over definitively to Paris and settles street Jean-Pare (today rue Jean Dolent), opposite the Prison of Health. On the initiative of his friend Paul Gilson, who directs the artistic programs there, he frequently collaborates in the French Radiodiffusion in company in particular of Nino Frank and Albert Rièra. Its radiophonic talks with Michel Manoll are a great success. It binds with young writers whom it recommends to the Denoël editions: Rene Fallet, Robert Giraud, Jean-Paul Clébert, Jacques Yonnet.
After a long and difficult work, it publishes, in 1956, Emmène along me at the end of the world! … , a novel with keys under cover of a police intrigue. The liveliness of this theatrical chronicle which must much with the life of the actress Marguerite Moreno, a friend of Raymone, fact scandal.
It will be its last work because it is victim of a stroke during the next summer. In 1960 it is a grabataire which André Malraux makes Commandeur of the Légion of honor.
He dies on January 21st, 1961, after having received in extremisthe only official literary reward which he obtained from alive sound: the literary Grand Prix of the Town of Paris.

Work

Poems

  •  The Legend of Novgorode or the Legend of Novgorode, the White gold and Silence . In its bibliographies, Cendrars thus presents this first poem which would have been published in Russia without its knowledge: " translated into Russian by R.R. on the manuscript; pulling in white on black paper; 14 numbered and signed specimens. Moscow, Sozonov, 1909. A volume in-12 carré". A specimen of this a long time untraceable plate was discovered in 1995 with SofiaBulgaria) and it was the subject of two translations in French (Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1996, then 1997). The authenticity of the plate today is strongly disputed. (
  • Easter . With a drawing of the author in frontispiece. Paris, Editions of the New men, 1912.
    • Becomes Easter in New York in Of the whole world . Paris, Gallimard, 1919.
    • Easter in New York . With eight wood of Frans Masereel. Paris, Rene Kieffer, 1926.
  • Sequences . Paris, Editions of the New men, 1913 (collection excluded by Cendrars from its complete Poetries).
    • Collection taken again in appendix of the complete Poetries , Denoël, complete Works , T.I, 1963,
    • Collection taken again in appendix of the complete Poetries among the " Poems of jeunesse" , Denoël, coll " All around aujourd' hui" , volume 1,2001.
  • Prose of Trans-Siberian and the small Jeanne de France . With simultaneous colors of Sonia Delaunay-Terk. Paris, Editions of the New men, 1913.
    • Trans-Siberian the . With a new portrait of the author and the reproductions out of FAC similé of the corrected tests of the poem. Paris, Seghers, 1957.
  •  The War in Luxembourg . With 6 drawings of Brace Kisling. Paris, D. Niestlé, 1916.
  • Panama or adventures of my seven uncles . Cover of Raoul Dufy, with 25 layouts of railroads American and an advertizing leaflet. Paris, the Siren, 1918.
  • Nineteen elastic poems . With a portrait of the author by Amedeo Modigliani (two in the pulling of head). Paris, With Without Similar, 1919.
    • Édition criticizes by Jean-Pierre Goldenstein. Paris, Meridian lines-Klincksieck, 1986.
  • Of the whole world , collection including/understandingEaster in New York Prose of Trans-Siberian and the small Jeanne de France and Panama or adventures of my seven uncles . Paris, Gallimard, 1919.
  • Roadmaps, I. Formosa . With 8 drawings of Tarsila Amaral. Paris, With Without Similar, 1924.
  • Kodak (Documentary) . Cover of Frans Masereel. With a portrait of the author by Francis Picabia. Paris, Stock, 1924.
  • complete Poetries . Preface of Jacques-Henry Lévesque. Paris, Denoël, 1944.
    • New re-examined and corrected edition. Paris, Denoël, 1947.
  • Of the whole world in the middle of the world. Complete poetries . Denoël, 1957.
Posthumous publications:
  • Volturno , with a lithography of Pierre Alechinsky. Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1989.
  • complete Poetries, with 41 new poems . Denoël, coll " All around aujourd' hui" , T. 1, ED. from Claude Leroy, 2001; new edition 2005. Resumption of the original versions of the collections with their illustrations.
  • Of the whole world in the middle of the world. Complete poetries . Preface Paul Morand, ED. of Claude Leroy. Poetry/Gallimard, 2006.

Radiophonic novels, tales, news, parts

  • Deep today . With 5 drawings of Angel Zarraga. Paris, With the Beautiful Edition, at François Bernouard, 1917 (poetic prose).
    • New edition without the drawings of Zarraga. Paris, Brought together Editors, coll " All around aujourd' hui" , 1926.
  •  I killed . With 5 drawings of Fernand Leger. With the Beautiful Edition, at François Bernouard, 1918 (poetic prose).
    • New edition. With a portrait of the author by Fernand Leger. Georges Crès, 1919.
  • End of the world filmed by the Angel NR. - D. . With compositions color of Fernand Leger. Paris, Editions of the Siren, 1919 (novel).
    • New edition preceded by a " Pro domo". Pierre Seghers, coll " Poetry 49" , 1949.
  • negro Anthology . Paris, Editions of the Siren, 1921.
    • Recouvrure of this edition With Without Similar, Paris, 1927.
    • " Final, re-examined edition and corrigée" , Paris, Corréâ, 1947.
  • Gold. Marvellous History of the general Johann August Suter . Paris, Grasset, 1925 (novel).
    • re-examined and corrected Edition. Grasset, 1947.
    • Gallimard, coll " Folio" , n° 331,1998. Preface of Francis Lacassin.
  • Eubage. With the antipodes of the unit . With 5 stroke engraving of Joseph Hecht. Paris, With Without Similar, 1926 (novel).
    • Édition criticizes by Jean-Carlo Flückiger. Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" n° 2,1995.
  • Moravagine . Paris, Grasset, 1926 (novel).
    • New re-examined and increased edition " Pro domo" and of a " postface". Paris, Grasset, 1956.
  • Praise of the dangerous life . Paris, Brought together Editors, coll " All around aujourd' hui" , 1926 (poetic prose).
  • ABC of the cinema . Paris, Brought together Editors, coll " All around aujourd' hui" , 1926 (poetic prose).
  • Small negro Tales for the children of the White . Paris, Editions of the Gantry, 1928.
    • With Without Similar, Paris, 1929. With forty wood and twelve except text of Pierre Pinsard.
    • Jean Vigneau, Paris, 1946. With illustrations of Francis Bernard.
  • the Plan of Needle (daN Yak) . Paris, With Without Similar, 1929 (novel).
  •  Confessions of Dan Yak . Paris, With Without Similar, 1929 (novel).
    • daN Yak . Paris, Editions of the Tower, 1946. Meeting in a volume re-examined and corrected Plane of the Needle and Confessions of daN Yak .
  • How the White are old Blacks . With five wood of Alfred Latour. Paris, With Without Similar, 1930 (tales).
  • True stories . Paris, Grasset, 1937 (news).
  • Dangerous Life . Paris, Grasset, 1938 (news).
    • the news I bled was taken again with the editions Zoe, coll " Minizoé" , n° 62, Geneva, 2004. Postface of Christine Quellec Cottier.
  • D' Oultremer with Indigo . Paris, Grasset, 1940 (news).
    • Gallimard, coll " Folio" , n° 2970,1998. Edition prefaced and annotated by Claude Leroy.
  • Take me along at the end of the world! … . Paris, Denoël, 1956 (novel).
  • Films without images . Paris, Denoël, 1959 (radiophonic parts).
Posthumous publications:
  • John Paul Jones or the Ambition . Preface of Claude Leroy. Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1989 (unfinished novel).
  • Life and the death of the Unknown soldier . Edition of Judith Trachsel. Preface of Claude Leroy. Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" n° 4,1995 (unfinished novel).
  • Carissima . Edition of Anna Maibach. Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" n° 5,1996 (unfinished novel).
  • Chinese Cupboards . Postface of Claude Leroy. Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 2001 (unfinished tale).
  • New negro Tales . Postface of Christine Quellec Cottier. Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 2006.

Reports

  • Rum. The adventure of Jean Galmot . Paris, Grasset, 1930.
    • Secret Life of Jean Galmot. Rum . New re-examined and increased edition. Paris, Editions of France, 1934.
  • Panorama of the underworld . Cover of Cassandre. With photographs in photogravure. Grenoble, Arthaud, 1935.
    • Panorama of the underworld and other reports . Texts collected by Miriam Cendrars and Francis Lacassin. Preface and bibliography by Francis Lacassin. UGE, coll " 10/18" , series " Large reporters" , 1986.
  • Hollywood, Mecque of the cinema . With 29 drawings per Jean Guerin. Paris, Grasset, 1936.
  • At the English army . Illustrated photographs. Paris, Corrêa, 1940. Edition rammed by the Germans.

Memories, talks

  • One night in the forest. First fragment of an autobiography . With three etchings of Charles Clément. Lausanne, Editions of Aquarius, 1929.
  • Gliding. Prochronie . Lausanne, Payot, 1932.
  • The Man struck down . Paris, Denoël, 1945.
  •  The cut Hand . Paris, Denoël, 1946.
  •  Bourlinguer . Paris, Denoël, 1948.
  • The Allotment of the sky . Paris, Denoël, 1949.
    • Holy Joseph de Cupertino . Recovery under this title of the second part of the Allotment of the sky . Paris, the Club of the Christian book, 1960.
    • The Allotment of the sky . Paris, Gallimard, coll " Folio" , n° 2795,1996. Edition prefaced and annotated by Claude Leroy.
  • Blaise Cendrars speaks to you… Remarks collected byMichel Manoll . Paris, Denoël, 1952.
  • Landscape in the work of Leger . Maintenance with Cendrars with Fernand Leger and Louis Square. Paris, Square Louis Gallery, 1956.
  • With the adventure (selected pages) . Extracts of: the Allotment of the sky, Bourlinguer, the cut Hand, the struck down Man, dangerous Life, D' Oultremer with Indigo . Paris, Denoël, 1958.
    • the Adventure . Paris, the Club of the Young Friends of the Book, 1958. With a book of photographs of the author by Robert Doisneau. Titrate put aside, volume identical to the precedent.
Posthumous publications:
  • Say to us, Mr Blaise Cendrars… Replies to the surveys literary of 1919 to 1957 , collected, annotated and prefaced by Hughes Richard, Lausanne, Éditions Meets, 1969.
  • Paris my city. Illustrations of Fernand Leger. Paris, Library of Arts, 1987.
  • My voyage in America . Postface of Christine Quellec Cottier. Illustrations of Pierre Alechinsky. Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 2003.
  • Blaise Cendrars, While bourlinguant… Discussions withMichel Manoll (broadcast version, 1950). INA/Radio France, coll the great hours , 4 CD, 2006.
  • Meetings with Blaise Cendrars. Talks and interviews (1925-1959) (ED. Claude Leroy). Paris, Not Place, 2007.

Tests

  • Today . Grasset, 1931. In frontispiece: drawing of the left hand of the author by Conrad Moricand.
  • Suburbs of Paris . With 130 photographs of Robert Doisneau. Double simultaneous edition: Lausanne, Guild of the Book/Paris, Seghers, 1949.
    • New edition, with 24 photographs of Robert Doisneau, Paris, Seghers, 1966.
  • Brazil. Men came . With 105 photographs of Jean Manzon. Monaco, Documents of art, coll " Stopovers of the monde" , n° 6,1952.
  • Christmas with the four corners of the world , Paris, Robert Cayla, coll " Friends of Originale" , n° 15,1953. Collected in Trop it is too .
  • Trop it is too . Paris, Denoël, 1957. In frontispiece: portrait of the author by Georges Bauquier.

Forewords and translations

  • the Book of child in the U.S.S.R. . Catalog exposure organized by Cendrars and Povolovsky for the Editions Bonaparte, April 27th - May 22nd, 1929. Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Collected in Today (1931).
  • Fire the Lieutenant Bringolf . Translation of Paul Budry. Version of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, With Without Similar, coll " The Heads brûlées" (directed by BC), n° 1,1930.
    • the Strange Adventure of the Lieutenant Bringolf . Preface R. - has. Reiss. Translation of Paul Budry. Version of Blaise Cendrars. Beuchâtel, Editions of Baconnière, 1930 (simultaneous publication).
  • Martin Shine Guzman, the Eagle and the snake . Translation of Mathilde Apples. Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, J. - O. Fourcade, 1930. Collected in True stories (1937).
  • Fred Paisley, Al Capone the Gash, Tsar of the Gangsters of Chicago . Preface of Géo London. Translated from American by V. of Puthod. Version of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, With Without Similar, coll " The Heads brûlées" , n° 2,1931.
  • The Spectacle is in the street , album of posters of Cassandre. Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Montrouge, Draeger Brothers, 1935.
  • Al Jennings, Out the law! … Life of an American outlaw told by itself . Translation and adaptation of American and the slang by Blaise Cendrars. Paris, Grasset, 1936.
  • Jose Maria Ferreira of Castro, Virgin forest . Translation of Portuguese and introduction by Blaise Cendrars. Paris, Grasset, 1938.
  • Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of the evil . Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, Union Bibliophile of France, coll " Vox" , 1946.
  • Honore de Balzac, Ferragus . Preface of Blaise Cendrars. In the Work of Balzac , Paris, the French Club of the book, T. 2,1950.
  • Jose Flaxes C Rêgo, the Child of the plantation . Translation of J. - W. Rheims. Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, Editions of the two Banks, 1953. Collected in Trop it is too (1957).
  • Instantaneous of Paris , 148 photographs of Robert Doisneau. Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Presentation of Albert Plécy. Paris, Arthaud, coll " Imaginaires" , n° 4,1955.
  • Georges Bauquier, Paintings. Drawings . Catalog exposure from June 11th to 30th 1955. Young Bernheim gallery. Presentation of Blaise Cendrars.
  • Douglas Cooper, Drawings of war (1915-1916) of Fernand Leger . Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, Berggruen, 1956. Collected in Trop it is too (1957).
  • Erich von Stroheim, Mangrove swamp mud . Preface of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, Editions of the Fountain, 1956.
  • Eric Newby, Adventurer of the South Seas . Translated from English by Robin Livio. Translation of Renee Nitzschke. Presentation of Blaise Cendrars. Paris, the Roundtable, 1958.

Correspondence

  • Blaise Cendrars-Jacques-Henry Lévesque, Correspondence 1924-1959: " I write. Write to me. " (ED. Monique Chefdor). Denoël, 1991.
  • Blaise Cendrars- Henry Miller, Correspondence 1934-1979: 45 years of friendship (ED. established and presented by Miriam Cendrars, introduction of Frederic Jacques Temple, notes of Jay Bochner). Denoël, 1995.
  • Blaise Cendrars-Ferreira of Castro, Correspondence (ED. Adrien Roig), Champion, Unintermitting Cendrars n° 10,1995-1996.
  • Blaise Cendrars-Elisabeth Prévost, Madam my buddy. An extremely rare friendship (ED. Monique Chefdor). Nantes, Éditions Joca Seriated, 1997.

Complete works

  • complete Works . Denoël, VIII volumes, 1960-1964.
  • complete Works . The French Club of the book, 15 volumes preceded by a volume of New secrecies , 1969-1971.
  • complete Works . Denoël, coll " All around aujourd' hui" (to dir. Claude Leroy), 15 volumes, 2001-2006:
    • 1: Poetry complete , with 41 new poems. Edition of Claude Leroy. XXX + 434 p., 2001.
    • 2: Gold - Rum - Money. Edition of Claude Leroy. XXIV + 360 p., 2001.
    • 3: Hollywood, Mecque of the cinema - ABC of the cinema - One night in the forest . Edition of Francis Vanoye. XXII + 234 p., 2001.
    • 4: daN Yak . Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXIV + 334 p., 2002.
    • 5: the Man struck down - " Without-Nom". Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXII + 448 p., 2002.
    • 6: the cut Hand - the cut Hand (1918) - the Woman and the soldier. Edition of Michele Lathe. XXX + 370 p., 2002.
    • 7: Moravagine - End of the world filmed by the Angel NR. - D. - " The Mystery of the End of the monde" -Eubage. With the antipodes of the unit . Edition of Jean-Carlo Flückiger. XXXII + 398 p., 2003.
    • 8: True stories - dangerous Life - D' Oultremer with Indigo - " A beautiful glare of rire". Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXII + 528 p., 2003.
    • 9: Bourlinguer - Gliding . Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXII + 512 p., 2003.
    • 10: negro Anthology Small negro Tales for the children of the White How the White are old Blacks- " KÎi, catches-nigauds" it; - " The Creation of Monde" - Conferences on the literature of the Negros. Edition of Christine Quellec Cottier. XXXII + 544 p., 2005.
    • 11: Today - " Jeroboam and Sirène" - " Under the sign of François Villon" - Foreword with Adventurer of the South Seas of Eric Newby - " Paris by Balzac" - Foreword with Virgin forest of Ferreira of Castro -Brazil Trop it is too . Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXII + 560 p., 2005.
    • 12: the Allotment of the sky - Suburbs of Paris - Foreword with Instantaneous of Paris , album of Robert Doisneau. Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXIV + 510 p., 2005.
    • 13: Panorama of the underworld - Smugglers - " On board Normandy " - Articles (1935-1938) - At the English army - Reports of war (1939-1940). Edition of Myriam Boucharenc. XXX + 450 p., 2006.
    • 14: Takes me along at the end of the world! … - " The Mystery of the création" - Films without images- macabre Dance of the love. Edition of Claude Leroy. XXX + 556 p., 2006.
    • 15: Blaise Cendrars speaks to you… Entretiens with Michel Manoll - Which are you? - Answers to the " Questionnaire Marcel Proust" - " For a library idéale" - Foreword with the Flowers of the evil of Baudelaire - Landscape in the work of Leger I saw dying Fernand Leger - " Painters of the dimanche" - " Georges Bauquier". Edition of Claude Leroy. XXXVI + 412 p., 2006.

Critical bibliography

Monographs

  • Amaral, Aracy, Blaise Cendrars No Brasil E bone modernistas , São Paulo, Martins, 1970.
    • New re-examined and supplemented edition, São Paulo, FAPESP, 1997.
  • Berranger, Marie-Paule, Of the whole world in the middle of the world of Blaise Cendrars , Paris, Gallimard, coll " Foliothèque" , 2007.
  • Bochner, Jay, Discovery and Re-creation , Toronto, University off Toronto Near, 1978.
  • Boder, Francis, the poetic sentence of Blaise Cendrars , Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" n° 7,2000.
  • Boillat, Gabriel, In the beginning, Cendrars , Bridge-of-Martel, Editions Hughes Richard, 1985.
  • Bonnefis, Philippe, daN Yak: Blaise Cendrars gramophone , Paris, PUF, coll " The text rêve" , 1992.
  • Bozon-Scalzitti, Yvette, Blaise Cendrars and symbolism . Paris, Minard, coll " Files of the Letter modernes" , n° 137,1972.
  • Bozon-Scalzitti, Yvette, Blaise Cendrars or the passion of the writing , Lausanne, the Age of man, coll " Lettera" , 1977.
  • Briche, Luce, Blaise Cendrars and the book , Paris, Improviste, 2005.
  • Buhler, Jean, Blaise Cendrars , Bienne, Editions of the Panorama, coll " Celebrities suisses" , 1960.
  • Cendrars, Miriam, Blaise Cendrars. The Gold of a poet . Paris, Gallimard, coll " Découvertes" , 1996.
  • Cendrars, Miriam, Blaise Cendrars. Life, the Verb, the Writing (1st ED. 1984), Paris, Denoël, 2006. Biographical test on his/her father by the girl of Cendrars.
  • Chadourne, Jacqueline, Blaise Cendrars poet of cosmos , Paris, Seghers, 1973.
  • Chefdor, Monique, Blaise Cendrars , Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1980.
  • Colvile, Georgiana Mr. Mr., Blaise Cendrars, protean writer , Amsterdam-Atlanta, Rodopi Editions, " Monographic collection in French literature contemporaine" , 1994.
  • Delvaille, Bernard, parallel Lives of Blaise Cendrars & Charles-Albert Cingria , Paris, Editions the Library, 2007.
  • Back Passos, John, " Homère of Transsibérien" , in East-Express train (1927). Translation of Marie-Claude Peugeot. Monaco, Editions of the Rock, 1991.
  • Eulalio, Alexandre, has Ventured will brasileira of Blaise Cendrars , São Paulo, 1978.
    • Nouvelle edition re-examined and increased by Carlos Augusto Calil, São Paulo, EDUSP/Imprensa Oficial, 2001.
  • Faivre Dupaigre, Anne, Poètes musicians. Cendrars, Mandelstam, Pasternak , Rennes, university Presses of Rennes, coll " Interférences" , 2006.
  • Flückiger, Jean-Carlo, In the middle of the text. Test on Blaise Cendrars , Neuchâtel, With Baconnière, coll " Langages" , 1977.
  • Frank, Nino, broken Memory , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1967.
  • Guiette, Robert, " Mr Cendrars is never là" (foreword of Michel Décaudin), Montpellier, Editions of the Silt, 1991.
  • Guyon, Laurence, Cendrars in enigma. Religious models, poetic writings , Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" , n° 9,2007.
  • Guyon, Robert, Echoes of the rail. Boats of Blaise Cendrars, Rennes, Editions Apogee, 2002.
  • Jaton, Anne-Marie, Cendrars , Geneva, Editions of Unicorne, 1991.
  • Lepage, Albert, Blaise Cendrars . Letter-foreword of Géo-Charles, Paris, Writers brought together, 1926.
  • Quellec Cottier, Christine, To become Cendrars. Years of training , Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" , n° 8,2004.
  • Leroy, Claude, Gold of Blaise Cendrars , Paris, Gallimard, coll " Foliothèque" , 1991.
  • Leroy, Claude, the hand of Cendrars , Villeneuve-to Ascq, university Presses of North, coll " Objet" , 1996.
  • Leroy, Claude, " Cendrars Blaise" , in Dictionary of poetry of Baudelaire at our days (to dir. Michel Jarrety), Paris, PUF, 2001.
  • Lévesque, Jacques-Henry, Blaise Cendrars , Paris, Editions of the New Assessment, 1947.
  • Michaud, Marius, Catalog of the Funds Blaise Cendrars. Swiss national library , Boudry-Neuchâtel, Editions of Baconnière, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" , n° 1,1989.
  • Miller, Henry, Blaise Cendrars . Translation of François Villié. Paris, Denoël, 1952.
  • Miller, Henry, Books of my life . Translation of Jean Rosenthal. Paris, Gallimard, 1957.
  • Parrot, Louis, Blaise Cendrars , Paris, Seghers, coll " Poets of aujourd'hui" , n° 11,1948.
  • Richard, Hughes, Sauser before Cendrars Re-examined neuchâteloise n° 89,1979.
  • Richter, Mario, the crisis of the logos and the search of the myth (Baudelaire-Rimbaud-Cendrars-Apollinaire) , Neuchâtel, With Baconnière, coll " Langages" , 1976.
  • Rousselot, Jean, Blaise Cendrars , Paris, Editions university, 1955.
  • Russo
  • , Maria Teresa, Have margini beyond soglia. Saggio known Blaise Cendrars , Palermo, Flaccovio Editore, 1999.
  • Sidoti, Antoine, Genesis and file of a polemic the Prose of Trans-Siberian and Small Jehanne de France, Blaise Cendrars-Sonia Delaunay Nov. - DEC. 1912- June 1914 , Paris, Minard, " Files of the Letters modernes" , n° 224,1987.
  • Lathe, Michele, Blaise Cendrars or the desire of the novel (1920-1930) , Paris, Champion, coll " Books Blaise Cendrars" , n° 7,1999.
  • you Serstevens, Albert, the Man who Cendrars (1st ED was Blaise. 1972), Arléa, 2004.

Collective works and special issues of reviews

  • Blaise Cendrars Books of France , August-September 1950.
  • Hello Blaise Cendrars! Risks, n° 9/10, the Madeleine, 1954.
  • Blaise Cendrars Books of France , March 1956.
  • Omaggio has Blaise Cendrars , Rome, Letteratura , n° 52, July-August 1961.
  • Blaise Cendrars 1887-1961 Mercure de France , n° 1185, May 1962.
  • Blaise Cendrars Europe , n° 566, June 1976. New edition 1995.
  • Cendrars today. Presence of a novelist (texts joined together by Michel Décaudin). Paris, Minard-Letters modern, coll " Icosathèque 4. The full century 1" , 1977.
  • Blaise Cendrars Poetry 1 , n° 85, March-April 1981.
  • Blaise Cendrars 20 years after (to dir. Claude Leroy), Paris, Klincksieck, 1983.
  • Blaise Cendrars literary Magazine , n° 203, January 1984.
  • Cendrars , La Chaux-de-Fonds, n° 6/7, autumn 1985.
  • Cendrars entdecken. Schreiben center, center Werk im Spiegel der Gegenwart (Hrsg. Peter Burri), Basle, Lenos, 1986.
  • The first century of Cendrars (1887-1987) Books of Textual Semiotics , n° 11, University Paris X-Nanterre, 1987.
  • Poetry 87 , n° May 18th, th and th - June 1987 (n° partially devoted to Cendrars).
  • Blaise Cendrars Intervals , re-examined cultural of the Jura and Bienne, n° June 18th, th and th 1987.
  • the New French Review , n° 421, February 1st, 1988 (n° partially devoted to Cendrars).
  • Blaise Cendrars (conference of the centenary to the CCI of Cerisy-the-Room), Southern , 1988.
  • Blaise Cendrars Re-examined Social sciences , n° 216,1989.
  • the inkpot of Cendrars (to dir. Jean-Carlo Flückiger), Neuchâtel, In Baconnière, 1989.
  • Blaise Cendrars and the struck down Man, Books of Textual Semiotics , n° 15, University Paris X-Nanterre, 1989.
  • Blaise Cendrars Quaderni del Novecento Francese , n° 12, Rome, Bulzoni, 1991.
  • the adventurer of the text (to dir. Jacqueline Bernard), Grenoble, PUG, 1992.
  • Gli universi di Blaise Cendrars (cleaned di Rino Cortiana has), Abano Terme, Piovan Editore, 1992.
  • Blaise Cendrars and the war (to dir. Claude Leroy), Armand Colin, 1995.
  • Cendrars and the Allotment of the sky (to dir. Claude Leroy), Armand Colin, 1995.
  • Cendrars, the adventurer of the two banks (to dir. Claude Leroy and Jean-Carlo Flückiger), Armand Colin, 1995.
  • Brazil, the Utopialand of Blaise Cendrars (to dir. Maria Teresa de Freitas and Claude Leroy), Harmattan, 1998.
  • Cendrars with the country of Jean Galmot (to dir. Michele Lathe), university Presses of Rennes, 1998.
  • the fable of the place. Studies on Blaise Cendrars (to dir. Monique Chefdor), Champion, 1999.
  • Blaise Cendrars. Ein Kaleidoskop in Texten und Bildern(Hrsg. Jean-Carlo Flückiger), Basle, Lenos, 1999.
  • Blaise Cendrars with the East wind (to dir. Henryk Chudak and Joanna Zurowska), Warsaw, Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2000.
  • To reinvent Cendrars. Blaise Cendrars and the translation (to dir. Irene Henking Weber and Christine Quellec Cottier, Lausanne, CTL, n° 38,2000.
  • Cendrars and arts (to dir. Maria Teresa de Freitas, Edmond Nogacki and Claude Leroy), university Presses of Valencians, 2002.
  • Dogs & literary cats at Cingria, Rousseau and Cendrars by Jacques Réda, Jacques Berchtold and Jean-Carlo Flückiger (" Dogs of Cendrars"). Geneva, Dogana, 2002.
  • Blaise Cendrars with the crossroads of the avant-gardes ,RITM , n° 26, University Paris X-Nanterre, Publidix, 2002.
  • " To greet Blaise Cendrars" , the New French Review , n° 563, October 2002 (with " Coffee-Express" of Cendrars presented by J. - C. Flückiger).
  • BlaiseMédia. Blaise Cendrars and the media RITM , n° 36, University Paris X-Nanterre, Publidix, 2006.

Specialized magazines

  • Roadmap , bulletin of connection of the International association Blaise Cendrars. Publication: twice a year, then (2005) once per annum. N° 1: April 1979… N° 44: September 2005.
  • Unintermitting Cendrars , re-examined Center of studies Blaise Cendrars of Bern. Editor association: Jean-Carlo Flückiger. Neuchâtel, In Baconnière (n° 1 to 6/7), then Paris, Champion (n° 8/9 and following):
    • 1: With " The conquest of Sigriswill" , new text, 1986.
    • 2: " 33 faces of Blaise Cendrars" , 1987.
    • 3: With " The mystery of the création" , new text (1952) and Meetings with Raymone, 1988.
    • 4: With Which are you? , new radiophonic maintenance (1950), 1989.
    • 5: With the cut Hand (1918), the Woman and the soldier (1946), news, 1990.
    • 6/7: " New materials for the negro Anthology " , 1991-1992.
    • 8/9: " Cendrars and the musique" , 1993-1994.
    • 10: " Glances on Cendrars and Brésil" , 1995-1996.
    • 11: " I am the autre" , 2004.
    • 12: " Violence and sacré" , 2006.
  • Blaise Cendrars , series published by modern Minard-Letters, Paris/Caen:
    • 1: " Unclassable (1917-1926) the " , to dir. Claude Leroy, 1986.
    • 2: " Cendrars and Amérique" , to dir. Monique Chefdor, 1989.
    • 3: " Bourlinguer in Méréville" , to dir. Claude Leroy, 1991.
    • 4: " Cendrars, Provence and seduction of Sud" , to dir. Monique Chefdor and Georgiana Colvile, 1996.
    • 5: " Portraits of the artiste" , to dir. Claude Leroy, 2003.
    • 6: " Under the sign of Moravagine" , to dir. Jean-Carlo Flückiger and Claude Leroy, 2006.

Friday, 26 December 2014

historical pubs in london

here are few more quintessentially English experiences than supping a pint of ale in a centuries-old public house, where the walls could tell you stories. London is awash with such places, remarkably so in some respects, given the destruction wreaked by the Great Fire of London, Second World War bombs and post-war planners.
Marked in the map above are some wonderfully historical pubs in the heart of London. Some were around before Shakespeare; others are comparatively recent Victorian additions – but all have a fascinating story behind them.
There are many more options beyond this map, and we have highlighted some of the most 
The Marquess Tavern Canonbury, noteworthy below.The Star Tavern in Belgravia has seen plenty of well-heeled visitors – including Peter O’Toole, Diana Dors and Alexander Korda – since it was built in the early 19th century. However, it is most noted for its role in one of the most colourful – and notorious – episodes in 20th century England. The grand upstairs room was supposedly where the Great Train Robbers hatched their plan to attack the Mail service in 1963. Bruce Reynolds, the ringleader, would reportedly drive up from south-west London in an Aston Martin to flesh out the details of the £2.3m heist. Now, it’s a grand, welcoming place with a good selection of Fuller’s beers

THE NAGS HEAD This wonderful, poky little pub is just a short distance from the shopping melee of Harrods and Knightsbridge, but is a completely different world. Just reaching it feels like a discovery, with its location down a quiet little mews. Once you stoop inside, you’ll find a cluttered assembly of portraits, bric-a-brac, pewter mugs, and curiosities, and Adnams on tap. This is where you come to get a sense of the public house as it was like centuries ago – and woe betide the person who ignores the mobile phone ban. As befits the old school nature of the place, there doesn’t seem to be an official web site.
53 Kinnerton St, SW1X 8ED
3. The Grenadier
Built in 1720, the Grenadier was originally used as an officer’s mess for the Foot Guards regiment. It became a pub in 1818, and it is rumoured the Duke of Wellington used to pop in for refreshment. Some also say it is haunted by the ghost of a former soldier who was murdered after cheating in a game of cards. In more recent years, Madonna chose to come here for a post-gig celebration, and the pub’s cosy interior remains the haunt of many a socialite after a traditional English pint and pub lunch.
4. The French House, Soho
This Soho institution has played a strong historical role, although as the name suggests, its influence has been felt more on the other side of the Channel. Ironically, the first known landlord was a German, Herr Schmidt, but he was deported after the outbreak of the First World War. During the Second World War, the pub was used as a meeting place for members of the French Resistance, including General de Gaulle. Later, its bohemian clientele included journalist Jeffrey Bernard, and Suggs from the band Madness. The pub retains a distinctly Gallic flavour today, serving alcohol in French measures. Traditionalists should approve of the absence of a television and its no mobile phone rule.
49 Dean St, W1D 5BG
www.frenchhousesoho.com/index.html
5. The Dog and Duck, Soho
Another well-known Soho watering hole with great literary associations, the Dog and Duck was where George Orwell used to drink. It has an ornate Victorian interior – the pub is Grade-II listed and noted for its lavish tiling and grand mirrors. In its previous incarnation on the same site (the current pub was built in 1897), John Constable and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were also apparently regulars – and the owners boast of a visit from Madonna: clearly the singer has good taste in traditional English pubs.
18 Bateman Street, London, W1D 3AJ
www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/thedogandducksoholondon
6. The Cross KeysThe Cross Keys
One of the most distinctive places in Covent Garden, often noted for the striking foliage around its façade. Within, it’s a far cry from the all-too-common homogenous pub chain, with a fantastic clutter of ornaments and memorabilia – there’s even a napkin said to have been signed by Elvis. It’s a defiantly traditional pub, which tends to be used by locals.
31 Endell Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9BA
www.crosskeyscoventgarden.com
7. The Lamb and Flag
This has a good claim as Covent Garden’s most historic watering hole, and retains much of its traditional charm. Tucked down an alleyway – which was once notorious as the site of bare-knuckle fighting – this is an enormously popular pub, where drinkers have included Dickens, and the 17th-century poet John Dryden. In fact, the latter was apparently the victim of an attempted murder nearby. By way of consolation, the upstairs room is now named after him. You may find you need to make your way there up the narrow wooden staircase to escape the crowds at the bottom.
33 Rose Street, London WC2E 9EB
lambandflagcoventgarden.co.uk
8. The Seven Stars
One of the few places in the area to survive the Great Fire of London, the tiny Seven Stars pub now has more than four centuries of history behind it. Located just behind the Royal Courts of Justice, it is a natural stomping ground for the pin stripes of the legal profession. Unassuming from the outside, it’s a traditional pub through and through within, and has a good range of real ales. Given its size, don’t expect to find much space – try to time a visit outside of lunch time and the post-work rush.
53-54 Carey St, London WC2A 2JB
9. Cittie of Yorke
A Sam Smith's pub (with very good value, but limited beer selection), the Cittie of York dates back to 1430, although the present building was built in the Twenties. And what a building it is. There are three different bars, and the one at the back is perhaps the most striking, a grand hall with a long bar, towering ceilings, and vats stashed to one side. It is Grade-II listed, and a CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) Heritage pub.
22 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6BN
10. The Lamb
This has a Victorian-style interior – although the pub is actually much older – and many associations with the Bloomsbury set; Dickens is also thought to have drunk here (among many other places). Strikingly, its “snob screens” are still in place, there’s a varnished horse-shoe shaped bar, as well as a polyphon (the predecessor to the gramophone) on display. English Heritage describes the pub as “an exceptional piece of `Victoriana'”. It’s a Young’s pub, and its character is beautifully maintained.
94 Lambs Conduit Street
www.youngs.co.uk/pubs/lamb
11. The Crown Tavern, Clerkenwell
Lenin used to drink at The Crown Tavern – or the Crown and Anchor as it was then – before revolutionary matters took him to Russia. It is thought he may even have conferred with Stalin on site. More recently it was the setting for a scene from Notes on a Scandal, starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. There are a good range of draught beers on offer.
43 Clerkenwell Green, EC1R 0EG
www.thecrowntavernec1.co.uk
12. Ye Olde Mitre Tavern
One of the most difficult to find of all the pubs listed here (according to one story, one man worked just around the corner for six years without finding it), this is well worth the effort. It’s unashamedly traditional (no TVs), and long may that continue. Previous clientele are rumoured to have included Elizabeth I (one story goes that she danced around a cherry tree that is still there). The current incarnation was built around 1772, although there had been a pub on the site since the mid 1500s. It is actually technically still part of the Diocese of Ely, Cambridgeshire, a bizarre quirk due to its origins as a tavern for the servants of the Palace of the Bishops of Ely, which was once based here.
Ely Court, Hatton Garden, Holborn, London EC1N 6SJ
13. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
On every list of historic pubs in London, and with reason: the warren-like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is an absolute treat. Countless literary grandees and journalists – from Samuel Johnson and Dickens to the Fleet Street hacks of the 20th century – have occupied a nook or cranny in its labyrinthine interior. Although very much on the tourist trail, it is big enough to cope. Rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire – a date flagged boastfully on the sign outside, it’s another Sam Smiths pub – cheap, but not a great beer selection. Oh, and if you find yourself in one of the cellar bars, you won’t get a mobile phone reception, completing your escape from the daily grind.
145 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BU
14. The Viaduct
The last surviving Victorian gin palace in London, the Viaduct opened the same year (1869) as the nearby viaduct. It is opposite the Old Bailey (where Newgate Prison once stood). The story that its beer cellars are former cells of Newgate Prison may be a myth (the case is convincingly argued here), but even so the pub is a great stop for history buffs. Elegantly curving on a corner, it has good Fuller’s ales on tap and a noteworthy interior, particularly its etched glass panels (the nearby Princess Louise also has striking examples), and a series of large portraits representing agriculture, banking and the arts.
126 Newgate Street; EC1A 7AA
viaducttavern.co.uk
15. The Black Friar
Now strangely exposed on very busy thoroughfare, the wedge-shaped Black Friar was once much more tucked away. It was going to be demolished along with the surrounding buildings until John Betjeman, who was later poet laureate, stepped in and campaigned successfully to save it. Few would argue with that now; little prepares you for the extravagance of its religious-themed Art Nouveau interior. It makes you wonder what the planners were thinking… See below for a virtual tour.
16. The George Inn
Last but emphatically not least on London ultimate’s historical pub tour. The George Inn (being south of the river) is out an a slight limb as far as this tour is concerned, but, along with Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, is possibly the most striking and atmospheric of them all. Once a coffee house visited by Dickens (it was mentioned in Little Dorrit), it is London’s last remaining galleried inn, and the only pub in London to be owned by the National Trust. An older incarnation was destroyed by fire in 1676. There is extensive outdoor seating.
The George Inn Yard, 77 Borough High Street, SE1 1NH
gkpubs.co.uk/pubs-in-london/the-george-inn-pub/
  • Want a more in-depth knowledge? Sophie Campbell, one of Telegraph Travel's London experts, runs historical pub walking tours (subject to availability).

Beyond central London

The following pubs are a little further away, but worth a detour if you have time.
The Grapes
Now owned by Sir Ian McKellen, this tavern (formerly the Bunch of Grapes) has stood on the same ground for half a millennia. It was known by Samuel Pepys, and by Dickens (again). In fact, the opening of Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend is supposedly based on it: “A tavern of dropsical appearance… long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. It had outlasted many a sprucer public house, indeed the whole house impended over the water but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver, who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all.”
76 Narrow Street, London E14 8BP
The Prospect of Whitby, Wapping
Another riverside pub oozing history; it claims to be the oldest riverside hostelry in London. On the north side of the Thames. There are terrific views over the river from the rear terrace. Turner is thought to have sketched views from the location.
The Spaniard’s Inn, Hampstead
Although it is a wanky yuppie pub it is worth going once at least .Perhaps the best watering hole in North London for literary associations, once counting the romantic poets John Keats and Lord Byron among its clientele. Dick Turpin is also thought to have been a regular. Inside, there are wood-panelled walls, while high-backed pub pews still give a sense of intrigue.
The Cutty Sark, Greenwich
Unbeatable riverside location, a little away from the main tourist hordes of Greenwich (but can still get very busy). Get a seat in the upstairs bay window, and idle your time away watching Thames life drift by.
The Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich
Another striking and very popular riverside pub that boasts Gladstone and Dickens as former regulars. Noted for its splendid Regency architecture as much as its riverside location.
The Dove, Hammersmith
Wonderfully located on a bend of the River Thames, The Dove is known as one of the best pubs in London to view the annual Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race. It has seen many notables dining and supping at its tables, including Charles II and his mistress Nell Gwynne.
The Mayflower, Rotherhithe
Extremely old, this pub south of the river was a stopping point for the pilgrim fathers as they emigrated to America.

Sunday, 7 December 2014

THE HISTORIC LONDON LOOK

"Did you ever dream about a place you never really recall being to before? A place that maybe only exists in your imagination? Some place far away, half remembered when you wake up. When you were there, though, you knew the language. You knew your way around. That was the sixties.... No.
It was London  It wasn't that either. It was just '66 and early '67. That's all there was....."

Michael Fish was born in 1940 in Essex. He started his career in fashion from working for a respectable fashion house - Collet's , in the mid-1950's. Quickly, he progressed to working first at New & Lingwood and then Turnbull and Asser - well known Jermyn Street shirtmakers who specialized in inventive, made-to-measure shirts. Michael Fish's arrival at Turnbull and Asser was a breath of a fresh air for the company. His highly imaginative and colourful designs helped the company to move with the times. Their first ready to wear shirts designed by Michael Fish were significantly different from their standard offerings. He changed the cut of a high collared shirt - he made the points larger and more widely spred and he introduced embroidery and ruffles. His designs for accesories were also revolutionary - his ties were wide and his pocket handkerchiefs were specially hand-blocked and printed.In 1966, after nine years at Turnbull and Asser, and a brief period at John Stephen's as an assistant designer, Michael Fish opened his own shop, Mr. Fish. His business partner was Barry Sainsbury - a wealthy young entrepreneur from upper middle class background , with good social connections. Their idea was to sell upmarket, fashionable clothes for the elite customers. The boutique was situated in 17 Clifford Street in Mayfair. The exclusivity of the shop was determined by high prices - usually around £35 for a jacket, £100 for a whole suit,  and anything between £8 and £20 for a shirt. The reason for such high prices lied in the generous use of expensive fabrics. The originality of  Mr. Fish's clothes was expressed in the slogan written on his shopping bags: "Peculiar to Mr. Fish". The shop was famous for its colored silk and cotton shirts, often ruffled, which fitted loosely around the body, rather than tightly (like typical shirt of , for example John Stephen). Another design typical for Mr. Fish was velvet jacket - it was usually double - breasted and elegantly draped. His famous paisley-patterned wide ties - also known as 'kipper ties', had become one of the symbols of 1960's male fashion. Mr. Fish was also one of the first designers to venture into gender-bending territory with his designs for dresses for men. The most memorable one is a white dress worn by Mick Jagger for The Rolling Stones free concert in Hyde Park on  5th July  1969.Bondage trousers, the bowler hat, brogues, the dandy, the floral shirt and tie, the great coat/riding coat, the three piece suit, the trench coat, tweed and tartan, and wellington boots have all been identified as the ten iconic styles that originated in Britain and have become mainstays in international menswear.
Taken from a V&A study commissioned by the British Fashion Council and written by Keren Protheroe, a PHD alumnus of the History of Fashion course at the Royal College of Art, these ten British inventions seal the UK’s reputation as the global origin of men’s fashion.BRITISH MENSWEAR TIMELINE
1666 - (Recorded in Pepys’s diary) The origins of the Three 
 Piece Suit
1700s - (late 1700s) The Brogue
1800s - Great Coat / Riding Coat
1800s - (Satirised in 1821) – Dandy
1817 - The Wellington Boot
1830 - Tweel renamed tweed after an English merchant 
 misread handwriting from a Hawick firm
1849 - The Bowler Hat
1860 - The Norfolk Jacket (Adapted from military clothing)
1865 - Henry Poole & Co. creates The Tuxedo
1914 - The Burberry Trench Coat
1924 - Oxford Bags
1950s - Teddy Boys (neo-Edwardianism)
1960s - Peacock Revolution
1960 - The Tailored Shirt and Tie
1970s - Punk
1976 - Bondage Trousers
1980 - New Romantic Movement
The 4,000 word study travels in time, from 1528 to present day, and explores how over the centuries the rules of men’s fashion have been made and broken.
LIBERTY
Regent Street W1, 1875 (founded by Arthur Lasenby 
Liberty). Menswear in the basement and haberdashery 
on the 3rd floor give insight into Liberty’s contribution to 
contemporary menswear and the company’s history of 
graphic floral prints