Three French-language pocket paperbacks from J.-J. Pauvert’s brilliant mid-century Libertés series.

Includes Diderot’s Écrits philosophiques, René Crevel’s surrealist-polemical Le Clavecin de Diderot, and Jean-Paul Weber’s Néo-critique et Paléo-critique ou Contre Picard. Together, they form a sharp little constellation of French Enlightenment, surrealism, anti-bourgeois thought, and 1960s literary-critical combat.

Diderot appears here as philosopher of matter, perception, scepticism and anti-clerical trouble; Crevel drags Diderot through surrealism, Lenin, sexuality, childhood, colonial critique and revolutionary disgust; Weber enters the heated “new criticism” debates of the 1960s, taking aim at Raymond Picard and the old guard of literary interpretation. A very handsome trio for readers of French thought, surrealism, structuralism, and beautifully severe paperback design.

Three French-language paperbacks. J.-J. Pauvert, Libertés series, 1960s. Includes Écrits philosophiques no. 3, Le Clavecin de Diderot no. 38, and Néo-critique et Paléo-critique ou Contre Picard no. 42. Typographic card wraps with age-toning, rubbing, creasing, softened corners and general shelfwear. Visually strong set with lovely series design.