The Cover Art of Boetie's Discours
Here is my collection of interesting cover art for editions of La Boétie's Discours de la Servitude volontaire. It includes French, English, and German editons. I have organised them into themes: chains and cages, classic portraits and art, oppressed figures and their oppressors, minimalist design and abstract art, cartoons and drawings, and advertising for events or performances.
Chains and Cages
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| An edition by "Mille et une nuits" (Thousand and One Nights) (July 1997). It has an image of what looks like a classical statue of a man bound with chains. | An edition by "Alicia Éditions" (Aug. 2017) with a stark balck background with a white broken chain. | An edition by Flammarion (Jan. 1993) with a roughly drawn empty bird cage with the door open. |
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| An edition by Larousse in their "Petis classiques philosophe" series (2014). It depicts a circular maze with an entry door which is shut. | An edition by Synapses (May, 2019) with a man's face tightly wrapped by rope, and unable to speak. |
Classic Portraits and Art
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| Anothe edition by Arléa (June, 2007) of a portrait of an unidentified young man. | Edition by Arléa (July 2020) with a paiting of an unidentified youth. (Boétie was supposed to have written the text when he was 18 years old) | An edition by Vrin (Oct. 2014) wiuth essays by André Tournon and Tristan Dagron. The image is Benvenuto Cellini's statue of "Perseus with the Head of Medusa" (1545–1554). Perseus has beheaded the Gorgon Medusa whose hair is made up of snakes and who turns to stone anyone who looks at her. |
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| The English magazine ANARCHY published in 1966 an abbreviated version of the 1735 "Smith" translation with an accompanying essay by Nicolas Walter. The front and back covers are quite stdriking. The fron cover shows a stylised version of Michelagelo's statue "David". The rear cover also shows a naked man but he is bound to a wall and is being tortured. | An edition by "La pharmacie de Platon" (Aug. 2011), edited by William Blake and with an Introduction by Jean-Paul Michel. It reproduces the small engraving of a figure being released from a tomb or coffin which also appeared on Bonnefon's 1892 editionof Boétie's Oeuvres. |
Oppressed Figures and Oppressors
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| Another edition by Black Rose Books (June 2007). It includes a translation of Paul Bonnefon's long introduction to his 1892 edition of Boétie's Oeuvres. It depicts 4 rows of soldiers on a red background. | An edition by Flammarion (ov. 2015) edited by Simone Goyard0-Fabre. It depicts 6 face-less figures holding up a king's crown. | An edition by Gallimard (Jan. 1993) with a picture of what looks like a devel with horns, probably representing the tyrant monarch or prince. |
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| This is a striking cover for the edition by Librio (Sept. 1993). It also contains Benjamin Constant's "De la Liberté des Anciens et les Modernes", and La Fontaine's fable of "The Wolf and the Dog" (hence the cover illustration of the dog). The wolf was wild, free, but hungry; the dog was domesticated and well-fed but had the scars of the collar it wore around its neck. | An edition by "les Editions de Londres" (Aug. 2011) which shows a medieval peasant working the fields outside a castle. | Another edition by Payot (2016) which shows the classic illustration from Thomas Hobbes' book Leviathan (1652). The "leviathan" monarch's body is composed of thousands of small figures of his subjects. |
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| The cover of an audio book version by Thélème (May, 2010) showing part of a picture of St. George on horseback slaying a dragon. The reader is Denis Podalydès. | An edition by "Exuvie" (no date) with a preface by the Belgian anarchist Raoul Vaneigem. The image is of a very small figure of Atlas carrying on his shoulders a very large rock. | A German translation published by Europäische Verlagsanstalt (Jan. 1992) edited by Horst Günther. Itg features a striking image of a pyramid of bodies by Juste de Juste (c.1540). |
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| The English magazine ANARCHY published in 1966 an abbreviated version of the 1735 "Smith" translation with an accompanying essay by Nicolas Walter. The front and back covers are quite stdriking. The fron cover shows a stylised version of Michelagelo's statue "David". The rear cover also shows a naked man but he is bound to a wall and is being tortured. | The Free Life Editons (1975) edition with an introduction by Murray Rothabrd. It uses the Kurz translation of 1942. I has balck and white text on a red background, with a faint chain across the page. |
Minimalist Design and Abstract Art
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| An edtion by R. Myles (1974) with annotations and an introduction by William Flygare and a preface by James J. Martin. It is unusual in that it has the French original on one page (the 1577 edition) and the English translation on the facing page (the 1735 Smith translation). The cover copul;d not be more minimalist. | An edition by Gallimard folioplus (Apr. 2016) in their classics of philosophy series edited by Ann Dalsuet. The cover is an image of a man's face which is deformed in a cubist style. | A fairly austere cover by Payot (1976), Edited by P. Leonard with an essay by Pierre Clastres and Claude Lefort on "La société et la question du polityique." |
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| Another German edition by Taschen (Feb. 2009) with a translation by the German anarchist Gustav Landauer (1910-11) and edited by Ulrich Klemm. It depicts a collection of triangles, lines, and a circle. | The title page of the Catalonian artist and typographer Louis Jou illustrated edition of 1922. | Another completely bare-bones cover with just the new title, "Anti-Dictator", given by the translator Harry Kurz for the 1942 edition published by Columbia University Press. The "second" title given to Boétie's book after his death was "le Contr'un" (the "opposing or counter 'one' "). |
Cartoons and Drawings
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| A German edition by Malik-Verlag (1924. It has a cover by the artist Georg Grosz which shows a submissive worker standing before a rich capitalist who is enjoying the finer things of life. | The original illustrated editon by the Belgian artist Jacques Laudy of 1947 edition by "Editions La Boétie", Bruxelles. Edited by Hem Day | An edition by "A l'Orient" (2007) edited by Charles Laisant which reproduces the illustrations by the Belgian artist Jacques Laudy. |
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| An illustrated version of the Fayard "Mille et une niuits" edtion by Les Éditions du Ruisseau (no date given). Illustrated by a "Collectif". |
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Advertising for Events or Performances
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| A cover illustration for an eBook version published by "Books on Demand" (Jan. 2019). It includes Thoreau's essay on Disobedience and shows female strikers putting up a poster. | Announcement of a performance of the stage version at the Théâtre de Nesle in Paris (no year given). | Announcement of a performance of the stage version at the Théâtre-Studio à Alfortville (Jan. 2020) |
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| La Boétie's text has been converted into a monologue to be performed on stage by Olivier Hueber. It lasts just over an hour. Two of the posters announcing a performance use the cartoon of the figure behind bars used in the illustrated book Le Petit La Boétie illustré (abc). |