I communicate to you two documents[1] that measure the kind of impostures made by the adversary -- the kind that risks being similar to those concerning foreign translation rights or other questions.
The very day on which the Lebovici Company appears to want to start the process of liquidation, and two weeks after it has transmitted to you through Mr. Baudelot[2] the assurance of the decision taken by it on this matter (as you wrote to me in your letter of 5 April), this Company wrote to England[3] so as to try to swindle money in the name of a supposed ownership of my books. One notes that this astonishing attempt was formulated in an equally bizarre fashion: [printed] on old Editions Lebovici stationary, with the location listed as rue de Bearn; and [though] Madame A. Blanc has not had access to the Editions Lebovici signature for a year (the last managing editor, Beatrice Couedic, resigned on 5 February and hasn't been replaced). But who finds herself legally responsible for a similar maneuver?
I beg you to believe, dear Sir, in the assurance of my distinguished sentiments.
Guy Debord[1] Translator's note: neither document was included, mentioned or even identified in the Fayard edition.
[2] Mr Yves Baudelot, attorney for Editions Gerard Lebovici.
[3] Translator's note: Verso Books, based in London, which sought and eventually obtained the rights to publish James Brook's translation of Debord's Panegyric.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)