o 1930 Enfance

This French edition can not properly be called a “wordless” novel.

While it was printed from the same wood blocks as the Czech and later English edition there are two important differences:

• After every 3 or 4 images the artist added what are basically chapter summaries (29 all told) that summarize the action in the images that follow (adding about 1500 words – not exactly wordless).
  • as an aside, some of the summaries appear to be out of sync with the images that follow.
  • as a further aside, a year later the English edition dropped the summaries and used an introduction by Arne Novák.
• Z Meho Dětství has a nine page introduction by Arne Novák, which is absent in this edition. Instead Enfance has a short introduction by the artist where she explains why she added the summaries. Presumably, based on the reaction to the wordless Czech edition she wrote:

I thought these images would speak for themselves; that it would not be necessary to accompany them with an explanatory text. ….
……But fearing that this task was beyond the strength of my reading friends, fearing also that my engravings are not sufficiently clear, I help their imaginations and will lead them through the life of little Helli.

Translated from the French introduction to Enfance

Description

• Title: Enfance: Gravures sur Bois (translated- Childhood: Wood Engravings)
• Artist/Author: Helena Bochořáková Dittrichová
• Introduction in French: Helena Bochořáková Dittrichová
• Date of publication: 1930, October 1
• Publisher: Dorbon-Aîné
• Place of publication: Paris
• Printer: Fr. Obiznaj Vyskov, (Czechoslovakia)
• Copyright: artist?
• Binding: hard cover
• Language: French title, etc
• Unpaginated
• Printed: recto
• Editions:
  • Ltd: 10 copies on vellum paper, these numbered and signed by the artist.
  • Trade: 300 copies; they were not numbered or signed EXCEPT there are a number of these that the artist did sign.
• The title page and the Trade dust jacket were done as a woodcut. The medallion with the baby propped up in a chair appears to be from the same block and is used in the dust jackets of the original Czech and the later English edition. New blocks were cut for the rest of the front DJ and spine of each of the editions to reflect the language.
• One can make out accent marks over Bochořáková Dittrichová on the front DJ of the Czech edition. Accent marks are absent in the French and English later editions and her name has been moved to the spine of the DJ.

Enfance Ltd – 10 Copies

• Size: 6 1/2H x 5W x 1 1/8 inches thick (note it is slightly larger all the way around but most noticeably it is thicker than the Trade edition ie because it was done with different paper)
• Dust jacket: No – this is an assumption based on the fact I have never seen a reference to a DJ for this or any of the other limited editions. The Trade editions all had a DJ but the limited edition has a slightly different dimension so the DJ probably would not fit.
• Quarter vellum with gold title on spine.
• Paper covered boards with gold stamped image of a baby on front cover
• signed on title page and numbered on the limitation page.

Enfance Trade – 300 copies

• Size: 6 3/8H x 4 7/8W x 7/8 inches thick (note it is thinner than the limited edition, done with different paper)
• Dust jacket: Yes, designed by the artist