[BABEUF, François-Noël]; [Scott, John Anthony, trans. & ed.; Cornell, Thomas, ill.]
The Defense of Gracchus Babeuf before the High Court of Vendome
Edited & Translated with an Essay on Babeuf by John Anthony Scott with Twenty-One Etched Portraits by Thomas Cornell
Northampton: The Gehenna Press, 1964

First edition in English translation (edited and abridged), copy 6 of 300.  Quarto, 12 unbound, uncut and unopened signatures loose in chemise with frontispiece etching by Thomas Cornell, unsigned, the pages 31.8 x 21.8 cm, interleaved with 20 loose etchings 31.2 x 21.2 cm by Cornell on blue Fabriano laid paper, each titled in blind and signed “Cornell” in pencil.  Letterpress in Baskerville type printed by Harold McGrath on linen Nideggen laid paper moldmade in Germany.  Collates as six quires of unsigned quartos in twos, one of each pair inserted into the fold of the other, [1]1-2, [2]1-4, [1]3-4, etc.: [2ll.] (blanks), 1 l. (half-title recto, frontispiece etching of Gracchus Babeuf verso), 1 l. (title recto), pp. 1-[59] (Babeuf’s Address to the Jury), [60] (notes), 61-[64] (Sylvain Maréchal’s “Manifeste des Égaux,” 1796), 65-[78] (essay by John Anthony Scott, “François-Noël Babeuf and the Conspiracy des Égaux”), 79-[84] (Biographical Notes), [1 l.] (blank), 1 l. (colophon and press device in red, variant X, recto), [1 l.] (blank); the interleaved 20 loose etchings placed generally before the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th leaves of each quire.  Tan calf chemise 32.2 x 22.5 cm, edges blind-ruled, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, Nideggen paper pastedowns, in a folding tray case 38.8 x 28.5 cm. in olive bookcloth lined with Nideggen paper.  Separate suite of 21 etchings, each titled, numbered 6/50, dated 1964 and signed “Cornell” in pencil, on heavy off-white Rives wove paper 37.8 x 27.8 cm, in a matching portfolio case, together with two watercolors of Clootz (Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce, baron de Cloots), one 33 x 25 cm, corresponding to the profile view of the etching (in reverse), signed in pencil “Thomas Cornell,” the other 25 x 21 cm, three-quarter view, initialed “C” in grey ink and numbered “16” in pencil lower right verso, both on cream wove watercolor paper.  The tray case and portfolio are contained in a matching quarter-leather clamshell box, 40 x 30 cm, the black calf spine with tan calf title label and footer date strip lettered and ruled in gilt.  Leonard Baskin designed the work; Emiliano Sorini printed the etchings in New York; Arno Werner executed the bindings.  Clamshell box with corner and edge wear to spine leather, top front corner of spine worn through, chipping of labels and bumping of outside top corner of bottom cover; all else fine.  One of 21 copies (numbered 1-21) with a watercolor, of the 50 copies with the separate suite, of the total edition of 300; this copy is not signed or numbered by Cornell on the colophon but is identified as copy 6 by the numbers “6/50” on the signed suite; it contains an additional, very forceful watercolor of Clootz not used in the etchings and may be a collaborator’s copy.

This work is a collaboration of Baskin’s design and McGrath’s presswork in the heyday of The Gehenna Press.  Colin Franklin quotes its prospectus in his assessment in the Bridwell Library catalogue (op. cit., p. 17), “After the Apology of Socrates before the Jury of Five Hundred, Babeuf’s plea before the tribunal of the Directory during the final hours of the French Revolution is perhaps the most splendid testament ever uttered in behalf of the freedom of man’s mind.”  Baskin relates in his note to the entry in the catalogue (op. cit., pp. 57-8), “It was in Edmund Wilson’s “To the Finland Station” that I first read excepts from Babeuf’s long oration in self defense [it took two weeks for him to deliver it].  Wanting to read it all, I repaired to the local library & then the inter-library benefice, but no English translation exists & the last French edition was issued in the mid-nineteenth century.  Discussion with Sidney Kaplan ensued which resulted in the press’ commissioning John Anthony Scott to translate & of necessity to severely edit the text, & the brilliant young artist Thomas Cornell devised a set of etchings of Babeuf & the principal players in his life & times.  The book is an exemplar of an ideal that the press strove for in those years.  A meaningful text, generally unavailable, set forth in handsome & apposite typography & enhanced with a set of etchings, woodcuts or lithographs, that enlarge or augment or deepen the text.  To make this glorious work more widely known the University of Massachusetts Press published a popular edition of it.”

References:

The Gehenna Press, The Work of Fifty Years, 1942-1992, The Catalogue of an Exhibition Curated by Lisa Unger Baskin Containing an Assessment of the Work of the Press by Colin Franklin, a Bibliography of the Books of The Gehenna Press by Hosea Baskin & Notes on the Books by the Printer, Leonard Baskin, Dallas and Northampton: The Bridwell Library & The Gehenna Press (1992), biblio. no. 36, pp. 56-8; ill. (title page), exh. no. 20, p. 158; see also p. 17 (assessment by Colin Franklin).

Brook, Stephen, A Bibliography of the Gehenna Press: 1942-1975, Northampton: J.P. Dwyer (1976), no. 36, pp. 22-3.

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