signed by the author

Magie der Schiene is a landmark book in postwar Swiss photography and design, with a format loosely modelled on Man Ray and Paul Eluard's Facile (1935). In 1949, Groebli travelled from his native Switzerland to France, where he met with his compatriot Robert Frank in Paris. He began this series whilst taking photographs in Gare de l'est. Subsequently, he gained permission from the Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) to photograph at railway stations, on railroad tracks, and commuter trains. When he returned to Switzerland, he was allowed to travel the entire route of his return ticket from Paris to Basel in the driver's cabin of an express locomotive. When Groebli self-published Magie der Schiene, the magic of steam-powered rail travel was already heavily loaded with nostalgia, rapidly being replaced by trains powered by electricity, the automobile, and air travel.

The total edition was 1000 copies, 700 in German and 300 in English. Magie der Schiene was originally published without a wraparound band, but Groebli produced a small number shortly after publication. In the mid-2000s, as interest in the work increased, he made a facsimile band, which he placed on those copies he still had in his possession.

First edition, number 365 of 700 copies, signed in green ink on colophon; small folio (246 x 182 mm, 9¾ x 7¼ in); 14 black-and-white photographs printed in gravure, poem by Albert Ehrismann, afterword by Hans Ulrich Gasser; 8 numbered bifolium leaves, loose in photo-illustrated card covers, minor toning to spine and rear with light rubbing, near-fine; [32]pp.

Regards 93; The Photobook: A History, I p204; The Open Book pp152-3; Auer p335; Eyes on Paris pp206-207; Swiss Photobooks from 1927 to the Present pp162-171.