Les Aventures du Professeur Philatelius
réf. 005597Paris: Jacques Lafitte. Stiff Wraps. Very Good. Scarce with no recorded copies on OCLC and not in BNF catalogue. N.d. 1930s and possibly Oblong 4to. 21 by 27 cm. 24 pp. A farcical story of an eccentric professor who chases after a sailor around the globe because a stamp from his collection was stolen. Along the way the professor has all kinds of contretemps with the natives -- Congolese Tahitians Martiniquians etc. Written and illustrated with a brio that is unbounded by bigotry or political rectitude as we now know it and a prism on rascist attitudes of an earlier era. Loosely in the spirit of Tintin stories or even Babar a little and contemporaneous with the early editions of both of those. The dating is tricky. There is the number 1943 indicated in small print on the final leaf but we don't think it is plausible that this was printed that late when Paris was under occupation. More plausible is an issuance in conjunction with the Coloniale Exposition which occurred in 1931 but there is no concrete evidence of this either. From the physical traits and the general style of the production though we are reasonably confident that it hailed from the thirties. Light wear. Jacques Lafitte unknown
