L’apprentissage de la nuit

Ernest Flammarion, Paris, 1929; First trade edition, fifteenth thousand (quinzieme mille); small 8vo, 249 pages; marbled boards. Autobiography of Georges Scapini, WWI French veteran blinded in action who went on to become a member of the French Chamber of Deputies, serving as French Ambassador of Prisoners during WWII from 1940-1944. A popular hero distinguished for his stirring public addresses, Scapini spoke from memory with only a few Braille notes as guide. In a controversial reversal of fortune, he was later tried and convicted as a Nazi collaborator and served five years at hard labor. L’apprentissage de la nuit was later published in the United States by Doubleday under the title "A Challenge to Darkness," with a preface by Helen Keller. Very Good Plus, marbled boards, cloth spine, gilt morocco spine title label, original wraps bound in. Text in French. There is a narrow 1/4" wide faint dampstain, 2 3/4" in length, in the right upper blank margin of the first 22 pages, well clear of the text. Very Good, binding tight, sound, square, no chips, tears, ownership signatures or any other markings of any kind.