Das erotische Werk Cleanders.

4to: 46 pp.

Publisher's red morocco, upper board with gilt-ruled title inlaid in blue leather, gilt-orn. spine with raised bands, gilt inside dent., top edge gilt. In red cloth case lined with blue velvet. Very nice copy.

First (only?) edition, very rare, of a collection of 16 "Sonnette der Wollust" (sonnets of lust) printed only for the author's friends. One of 20 copies on Van Gelder laid paper, only paper (hand-numbered 4). Beautiful typography with text entirely framed with gold fillets and ornaments. The author, who hides under the name of Cleander, favourite of the Roman emperor Commodus, is E.-E. Schwabach (1891-1938), a German publisher, translator, author and patron of the arts linked to Expressionism.
Ref. Widlok, P. - Erik-Ernst Schwabach (1891-1938). Vienna, 2017, pp. 208-sq., 273. - Not in Dutel, Pia, Nordmann.
Prov. Kurt Wolff (1887-1963), German publisher (the first to promote and publish Franz Kafka), writer, and journalist (nominative copy). According Paul Englisch, who purchased a copy of our book in 1930, "[Schwabach] liess [Cleander] durch Vermittlung von Kurt Wolff, dem bekannten Münchener Verleger bei C.W. Poeschel in Leipzig 1923 (sic!) drucken... Das Exemplar stammt aus dem Besitz von Kurt Wolff, der seine Erotiksammlung letzthin abgestossen hat" (letter quoted in Widlok, op. cit., p. 210).