Bon à tirer. document signé par lequel l’auteur donne son accord pour l’impression de son texte; moyennant cette signature, le texte quitte définitivement la sphère du privé, celle de l’écriture, pour entrer dans la sphère public, celle des écrits publiés.
The left-hand column of the table [on page 34-35 of the article], Stage, is devoted to the general distinction between Avant-texte and Text. A horizontal bar cuts right across the table at the level corresponding to “Bon à tirer” in the column headed Document Type, the decisive moment when what had been in a pliable and mobile manuscript state up to that point becomes fixed in the frozen shape of a published text. Everything above this dividing line belongs to the pre-textual domain and is a matter for manuscript genetics (or pre-textual genetics), while everything below belongs to the textual domain and is the province of textual genetics.
Where it exists, the pronouncement “bon à tirer” marks the moment when the author decides that he or she can put an end to the general and local metamorphoses of the work, which can thus be manufactured and offered to the public in this form. From this moment, we leave the pre-textual domain for the textual history of the work: a history in which the author is still in a position to act upon his or her text. It might be diverted via the publishing of a “pre-first-edition” version, in serial form in the press, or end directly in the publication and distribution of the “first edition” in book form. This is the “text” of the work, but, of course, it is not necessarily the final state of the text.