Attempted Bloggery: François Martineau's Copy of Entre vieilles connaissances by Ronald Searle and Heinz Huber

Over six years when he was traveling the world for Holiday magazine, illustrator Ronald Searle (1920-2011) was able to assemble a substantial collection of drawings on the topic of Germany. Some of these were originally published in Holiday and some in Kristall, a Hamburg publication, between 1964 and 1966.

When they finally appeared together in book form in 1966, they were paired with text by Heinz Huber, a German television documentarian who provided his own independent perspective. The resulting book was issued, remarkably, in three languages. In German, it was called Anatomie eines Adlers: Ein Deutschlandbuch. The English-language version is Haven't We Met Before Somewhere?: Germany From the Inside and Out, translated by Constantine FitzGibbon (1919-1983), who previously had translated Rilke.

French publisher François Martineau (1927-1999) brought out a paperback version for his country in that same year, Entre vieilles connaissances [Between Old Acquaintances] translated by Pierre Kamnitzer. Searle seems to have been pleased with this last version, judging by the unique copy of the book he presented to Martineau. There is an original watercolor of a man wearing traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest lederhosen and dirndl smoking a big cigar and holding a beer stein. The drawing is signed in full and dated Paris, December 1966. Above this, Searle wrote, "—For François Martineau/ who has made a beautiful book/ of these beauties of Germany/ with the thanks of/ R.S."