Item #55743 [POETRY AS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE] Poemul invectivă: cu amprentele digitale ale autorului [The invective poem: with the author's fingerprints]. Geo Bogza.

Bogza, Geo.

[POETRY AS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE] Poemul invectivă: cu amprentele digitale ale autorului [The invective poem: with the author's fingerprints].

Bucharest: Editura “UNU", 1933. Octavo (24 × 16 cm). Original printed wrappers; 19, [1] pp. with the frontispiece, which depicts the author's fingerprints. Uncut and unopened copy; first pages with a few faint foxing stains; else very good. Item #55743

One of 50 numbered copies of the first edition, containing the verses that caused a scandal; alongside this, two deluxe editions were printed in a total of 50 copies. The small volume of poetry, together with the 1929 poetry collection "Jurnal de sex", was used as grounds for initiating legal proceedings against Bogza. He had to stand trial in 1933 and, following a retrial in 1937, serve a prison sentence. The author’s fingerprints printed as the frontispiece have been interpreted in the literature as a premonition of this prosecution. (See: Roland Prügel, Im Zeichen der Stadt: Avantgarde in Rumänien 1920–1938, Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna, 2008, p. 150.)

The "Unu" group around Pană met in a Bucharest milk bar run by the father of the writer and professional boxer Stephan Roll. Pană maintained contact with the Parisian Surrealists, especially Breton, with whom he was in correspondence. Nevertheless, the group saw itself as independent. Surrealism was intensively received, but the group did not see itself as part of the movement. Within the Romanian avant-garde, "Unu" was in contact with the circle around "Contimporanul. But it was not long before "unu" attacked its older colleagues. Pană published a sarcastic article in which he distanced himself from the constructivism of "Contimporanul" in no uncertain terms and claimed the pioneering role in Romania for himself and his journal. Pană sought to compete with Marcel Janco and Ion Vinea. (Roland Prügel, ibid., pp. 136ff.)

Provenance: According to the previous owner, this copy comes from Pană’s own collection, although the book contains no annotations.

Ilk, Unu 17 (there with a wraparound band).

As of August 2026, OCLC lists only two copies in North America and, beyond that, only three copies worldwide.