Jean de Brunhoff (Great Port) Le Voyage de Babar. Paris Editions du Jardin des Modes, first edition, 1932. $625.00

(Great Port)

Jean de Brunhoff (1899 – 1937) was a French writer and illustrator remembered best for creating the Babar series of children's books concerning a fictional elephant, the first of which was published in 1931. Jean de Brunhoff died from tuberculosis aged 37.

The Babar books began as a bedtime story Cécile de Brunhoff invented for their four and five year old children.  The boys liked the story of the little elephant who left the jungle for a city resembling Paris so much that they asked their father, a painter, to illustrate it.  De Brunhoff created a picture book, with text, which was published by a family-owned publishing house, Le Jardin des Modes.  Originally it was planned that the book's title page would state the story as told by Jean and Cécile de Brunhoff. However, she had her name omitted. Due to the role she played in the genesis of the Babar story, some sources refer to her as the creator of the Babar story.

Some critics view the story as an allegory of French colonization where the “good” elephants, are brought to the imperial capital, acculturated, and then sent back to their homeland on a civilizing mission.

Print 14 x 20 ¾ inches sheet.
Very good condition.
Matted.