Author: LECLERCQ - DE RIDDER - DE HAAS ( éditeurs ) - [ ] Willem Elsschot :
Title: Livre d'Or du Centenaire de l'Indépendance Belge. 1830 - 1930. Sous le Haut Patronage de S.M. le Roi Albert.
Description: Bruxelles, Anvers, Leclerq, De Ridder et De Haas, éditeurs, 1931, in-folio, 40 x 31 pp, 722 pp + plates h.t., bound in publisher's half leather with gilt title on smooth spine. Binding with minimal shelf wear, inside spotless, a fine copy. With numerous illustrations and text contributions from Carton de Wiart , A. Devèze , Louis Franck...[...]. Unnumbered copy on ''Papier Vélin'' . From the colophon '' Ouvrage publié sous la direction de René Leclercq avec la collaboration de Camille Puylaert, ornamentations René Leclercq, V. van Dieren & Cie, Anvers, imprimeur.''. Nice copy of the principal venture in publication by the publicity and advertising company ''La Propagande Commerciale (de) Léonce Leclercq, Alfons De Ridder et Lodewijk De Haas''. The Flemish author Willem Elsschot ( pseudonym of Alfons De Ridder) was the instigator and contributor to this preposterous publication made to commemorate the centenary of Belgium's independance. He succeded in convincing nearly the whole belgian establisment to participate at this publication under the patronage of king Albert himself. The king ordered even 16 ''de luxe copies'' . The whole process of exploiting the credulity and vanity of society by means of costly and prestigious publications with no real contents, paid for by the book 's subjects, is extensively described in his literary masterpiece '' Lijmen/Het Been'' . See at length ; Vic van de Reijt; Elsschot leven en werken van Alfons de Ridder pp. 165-166. .

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