ROSTAND, Edmond. *Le Cantique de l'aile*. - Lot 276

ROSTAND, Edmond. *Le Cantique de l'aile*. A very rare first edition of this poem by Edmond Rostand celebrating aviation. One of 10 copies on laid paper in the standard format (No. 2), the only announced print run. No place, no publisher, no date [1911]. Large 8vo, bound with gray thread, a two-tone printed covered binding with a vignette on the front cover. 16 pp. Cover is tarnished with stains; very rare foxing. First edition. One of 10 numbered copies on laid paper (No. 2), the only large-format paper announced. Three original watercolors, likely by Robert Sallès (1871–1929), illustrate this aerial journey: two half-page inserts and one at the bottom of the page, as well as a small woodcut depicting a monoplane repeated several times in yellow throughout the pages. This long poem celebrating aviation and its pioneers, written by the father of Cyrano de Bergerac, would not be republished until posthumously in a collection of the same name published by Eugène Fasquelle in Paris in 1922. In good condition.