Volées de bois vert  (literally ‘a hail of green wood’) is a typical clandestine publication produced by the prolific Charles Carrington in the early years of the twentieth century. It was published as part of his Librairie des Bibliophiles Parisiens, in the series La flagellation à travers le monde (Flagellation Around the World). It consists of four stories by ‘Jean de Villiot’, which was a collective pseudonym used by several authors and editors working for Carrington, including Hugues Rebell, Hector France, Stéphane Arnoulin, and Charles Carrington himself. The stories in this volume are Une pelote de ficelle (A Ball of String); Juanita; La jolie secrétaire (The Pretty Secretary), and Deux sur dix (Two out of Ten), and the relatively high quality of the stories suggests that Rebell is the likely author.

These days the expression ‘volée de bois vert’ is most often used by the media in the context of political conflicts involving violent criticism or a severe reprimand, rather than the literal application of a bunch of sticks to the posterior.

It appears that most of the fifteen van Maële illustrations were commissioned specifically for this volume, rather than the usual Carrington policy of using any suitable generic plates, and the use of colour adds another dimension, even though the poor paper quality detracts rather from the colour reproduction. Unfortunately the only known extant copy of Volées de bois vert is lacking its cover, which is why we are unable to show one here,

Volées de bois vert was printed by Veuve Félix Guy à Alençon, in a limited edition of 500 copies.

We are very grateful to Steve Mullins of the Olympia Press website (www.parisolympiapress.com) for these illustrations.