"IT IS POSSIBLY DUE TO SOME UNKNOWN DIREFUL CIRCUMSTANCE"

GOREY, Edward. L'Heure Bleue. [New York]: (Fantod Press/Gotham Book Mart), 1975. Oblong octavo, original wrappers. $650.

Signed limited first edition, number 157 of 500 numbered copies signed by Edward Gorey on the limitation page, of this work of "somber nonsense."

"L'Heure Bleue assumes a melancholy air… Published under his Fantod Press imprint… it's a gorgeous book, the only Fantod printed in two colors, black and a lush cerulean blue. The title derives from the French term for that fleeting period in early dawn or late dusk when the indirect light of the sun paints the sky a shimmering blue. It's a time rich in poetic associations: ambiguity, ambivalence, wistfulness, time slipping away. (In English, it's the 'magic hour.')… We feel as if we're overhearing a conversation between intimates, full of in-jokes, oblique references, coded allusions. In each panel, the dogs exchange enigmatic snatches of dialogue, surrealistic non sequiturs that recall the hermetic languages couples and close friends slip into… L'Heure Bleue is somber nonsense" (Dery, Born to Be Posthumous, 309-310). Also issued in a signed lettered limitation of 26 copies. Toledano A60b.

A fine copy.