SEXUALNÍ NOCTURNO.: Příběh demaskované iluse.

Octavo 20x13 cm., original wrappers, 62pp.. Ten full-page xylographic collages by Jindřich Štyrský. Edition of 138 numbered copies, this being no. 94 printed on simulated Japan paper. Privately printed and only distributed by Styrsky to his friends and collectors, the Edice 69 was edited by Štyrský and Toyen with Nezval. None of the titles were not released for public consumption. All their publications explored eroticism without inhibition. Subtitled "A Tale of Illusion Unmasked," this is a account of an teenage boy's initiation into sexuality through a machine, with a full range of fantasies and untested ideas. It is an autobiographical recovery of Nezval's adolescence and sexual awakening in the arena of the provincial morals where he spent his upbringing, recovered in a surrealist mental collage which includes themes of voyeurism and castration. Štyrský's illustrations, which came about through a mutual collaboration with Nezval, are done deliberately in the style of Max Ernst and are startling, comic and superb; they have become signature pieces in a playful and threatening erotica. This spurred Štyrský to go much further in his subsequent work in collage. Worldcat finds nine North American library holdings. This copy is in a clamshell box, and is in fine condition. Refs: Karel Srp, Lenka Bydžovská: Jindřich Štyrsky, pp. 227-233.