EXCEPTIONAL FIRST EDITION OF SALVADOR DALÍ'S COOKBOOK, LES DINERS DE GALA, BOLDLY INSCRIBED BY DALÍ WITH AN ORIGINAL SKETCH OF A SHOOTING STAR

DALÍ, Salvador. Les Dîners de Gala. New York: Felice, (1973). Thick folio (9 by 12 inches), original color-printed pictorial cloth, original decorative dust jacket. $13,500.

Desirable first edition of this extravagant, lavishly illustrated cookbook created by Dalí in honor of his wife Gala, an exceptional copy boldly inscribed in black felt pen by Dalí across two pages preceding title page to "Josefine," with his sketch of shooting star above his name, "Dalí, 1975."

"When six years old I wanted to be a cook." At age 68, Dalí fulfilled that ambition in this book. His careful selection of menus and recipes, "with its precepts and its illustrations, is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of Taste. Don't look for dietetic formulas here. We intend to ignore those charts and tables in which chemistry takes the place of gastronomy. If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive and far too impertinent for you." Gala was Dalí's wife and muse. With color plates and in-text photographs and illustrations on nearly every page. Preceded in 1971 by a portfolio of 12 colored lithographs under the same title, each reproduced in this enlarged edition. Copyright statement on verso of frontispiece page rather than page 9 (no priority established). Text in English.

A fine signed copy.