[PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS]
- Authors: Philippe Soupault (フィリップ・スーポウ) / Francis de Miomandre (フランシス・ド・ミオマンドル)
- Title: モン・パリ変奏曲 / カジノ (Mon Paris Hensōkyoku / Casino)
- Original titles: Mon Paris / Le Casino (Paris, 1928)
- Translators: Ishikawa Mio (石川澄) / Tan Kyōichirō (丹京一郎)
- Series: 世界大都會尖端ジャズ文学 (Sekai Daitokai Sentan Jazz Bungaku) Vol. 4
- Publisher: Shunyōdō (春陽堂), Tokyo
- Year Published: April 18, 1930 (Shōwa 5) — First Edition, First Printing
- Language: Japanese
- Format: Hardcover
- Size: 20 × 14 cm, 326 pages
- Illustrations: Line drawings and full-spread gravure photographs of Paris
[OVERVIEW]
In 1930, Shunyōdō launched a series called 世界大都會尖端ジャズ文学 — Cutting-Edge Jazz Literature of the World’s Great Cities. Each volume paired writers with a city. Volume 4 paired Paris with two voices.
The first was Philippe Soupault. He had co-founded Surrealism with André Breton in 1919; by the late 1920s he was writing about Paris at night — not the monument city, but the one that moved. Mon Paris is that book. Full-spread gravure photographs of the Seine accompany the text.
The second was Francis de Miomandre. His Le Casino is a novel of pleasure districts and gambling halls — the geography of distraction that Paris and every modern city offered to anyone willing to pay.
Both were published in France in 1928. Shunyōdō brought them to Japan two years later, bound together in a single volume, under a series title that announced exactly what it was selling: the literary avant-garde of the jazz age, in Japanese.
[IMPORTANT NOTE FOR INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: EASY AI TRANSLATION]
While the text is printed in Japanese, you can easily read and study this historic book using modern smartphone AI tools! By taking a photo of any page with your smartphone and using free apps like Google Lens, ChatGPT, or Google Translate, the embedded AI will instantly scan and translate the text on your screen layout. Language is no longer a barrier to owning and enjoying this rare piece of international history.
[WHY THIS VOLUME IS A PRIZED COLLECTOR’S ITEM]
1. Soupault before the exile. Philippe Soupault co-wrote the first Surrealist text — Les Champs magnétiques — with Breton in 1919. By 1926 he had been expelled from the movement. Mon Paris belongs to the years in between: a Surrealist writing about the city he helped define, before the break. This Japanese translation appeared in 1930, when that history was still unfolding.
2. A series that treated jazz-age literature as news. 世界大都會尖端ジャズ文学 ran to multiple volumes — Chicago, Broadway, Paris. Each volume was designed to match its subject: the cover of this volume carries an Art Deco stage scene in black and orange, a spotlight and a silhouette, the visual grammar of a Shōwa nightclub poster. The series treated European modernism not as cultural import but as contemporary fact.
3. Two cities, one binding. Mon Paris ends with the Seine. Le Casino opens in a pleasure district. Shunyōdō bound them together without explanation — as if the connection were obvious. It was.
[CONDITION]
Fair to Good Vintage Condition — Honest Assessment for a 96-Year-Old Volume
- Covers & Spine: The binding cloth shows significant wear; the spine is abraded and partially lifting at the edges. Corners show heavy use.
- Binding: Intact and holding; pages secure.
- Interior & Pages: Gravure photographs and line illustrations present and clean. Age-toning throughout, consistent with a 1930 printing. No tears, no inscriptions noted.
- Please carefully inspect all high-resolution listing photos to verify the vintage condition of this item.
