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Abstract
Books have always been threatened, but no century was more devastating for the written word than the twentieth. Books in public and private libraries were confiscated, displaced or destroyed, and their owners were killed or dispossessed and forced to emigrate. Only recently have public institutions been dedicated to researching the provenance of these books and, in some cases, ensuring they are restituted to the heirs of their former owners. However, an unknown number of books have survived incognito in private collections or circulated on the international antiquarian market. Given the historical thinning of memory traces, it is even more important to bring books out of the shadow; to clarify their provenance and recall the history of those who wrote, owned or circulated these books. In this paper, I present one such case involving a book from my own library.