Prominent French writer Michel Butor recently donated more than 100 of his works to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Included in the gift are many of his limited edition, signed artist's books -- those books that combine text, illustration, design, paper and binding into a work of art that conveys information through its construction as well as through its textual content. Michel Butor has long been in the forefront of French writers who have collaborated with leading artists to produce books that are important for their artifactual as well as intellectual value.
Mr. Butor came to prominence in the 1950s with his early novels and his association with the New Novelists, writers whose technical experimentations with the literary novel form constituted the most important French literary phenomenon of the 1950s and early 1960s. New Novelists attempted to redefine literary fiction by "problematizing" all aspects of the novel's tradition inherited from the 19th century, including plot, characterization, narrative and reading. During this period Mr. Butor wrote four novels that established his reputation: Passage de Milan (1954), L'Emploi de Temps (1956), La Modification (1957, Prix Renaudot), and Degr‚s (1960).
Since the publication of these novels, much of Mr. Butor's work has been characterized more as texts rather than novels and has been done in collaboration with artists, working with the visual and even tactile composition and perception of a text along with its intellectual aspects. Mr. Butor has issued many of his works first in the artist's book format and then in a trade edition. He continues to work actively in the creation and construction of these important books.
The Library has collected several of Michel Butor's works, and his collection is an appropriate addition to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division's renowned collections in the book arts. These include the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of Illustrated Books, the Fine Press Collections and the archives or comprehensive holdings, or both, of major book artists and designers, such as Frederic Goudy, Bruce Rogers, Leonard Baskin and Claire Van Vliet.
Michel Butor's works fit into the Library's collections especially well since many take the United States as a theme. The current gift includes, for example, the books Manhattan Sixties, Un soir … New York and Bicentennaire Kit, USA 76. Artists represented in the works donated include Jean Cortot, Roger Druet, Henri Maccheroni, Patrice Pouperon, and Baruj Salinas.
Michel Butor's gift came to the Library through the generous efforts of Leon Roudiez, prominent scholar of modern French literature and especially of the works of Mr. Butor, professor emeritus at Columbia University and a friend of the writer. Dr. Roudiez and Larry Sullivan, then chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, met in 1992 at an artist's-books exhibition opening at Columbia University in New York and discussed their mutual interest in the works of Michel Butor. Dr. Roudiez and Dr. Sullivan relayed the Library's interest to Mr. Butor, and he decided to make this gift of his works to the nation's library. Mr. Butor's gift continues the Rare Book Division's active collecting in the field of the modern book in all its variations.
