Gros & Delettrez
222
-
VERLAINE.
See original version (French)
222
-
VERLAINE.
See original version (French)
Estimate €1,500 - €2,000
Voluntary lot
Description
VERLAINE.
Title: Romances sans paroles.
Description: Sens, typeset by Maurice L’Hermitte, 1874.
Small 8vo, (4)-48-(1) pp. Modern Lavallière box, smooth spine, title gilded lengthwise and framed, double gilded line
as a border with fleurons in the spandrels on the covers, gilded roulette on the endpapers, cover
preserved (minor signs of wear on the front cover, a few discreet foxing spots on 2 ff. at the top
but a fine copy).
Note: Rare first edition.
One of 300 copies on tinted vellum, single print run, without large-format paper.
The volume, comprising four sections—‘Ariettes oubliées’, ‘Paysages belges’, ‘Birds in the Night’ and ‘Aquarelle’—contains some
of Verlaine’s most intense poems, composed during his elopement with Rimbaud and amidst his
toxic social circle.
A fine copy with its rare cover bearing the address ‘Chez tous les libraires’.
Sent by the author to Edmond Haraucourt, as indicated on the half-title page.
‘To Edmond Haraucourt / With warmest regards / P. Verlaine’.
A Parnassian poet known, amongst other things, for the scathing criticism levelled at him by Léon Daudet, Edmond Haraucourt
(1856–1941) was a novelist, journalist, composer and lyricist, who became famous for the obscene sonnets
sought after by old men and schoolboys, *La Légende des sexes*. A “gargoyle of the highest order”, he bellowed a
masculine and coarse poetry.
Whilst we know from his correspondence that Verlaine set aside signed copies of *Romances* for the press
the press, he did not meet Haraucourt until later; they were comrades in literature and in the nocturnal transgressions of the
Parisian underworld, after the ‘maudit’ poet’s return from his Belgian captivity and the scandal surrounding *La Légende*, which
also contained homosexual verses.
Bibliography: Galantaris, 31: ‘Verlaine had initially wanted to dedicate the collection to Arthur Rimbaud, first as a protest,
he said, and then because these verses were written whilst he was there and he had strongly encouraged me to write them. Friends
intervened, as they feared a scandal, and the volume was ultimately published without a dedication’. Montel, 18–20.
Léon Daudet, *Fantômes et vivants*, 1914; *Souvenirs politiques et littéraires* (Bouquins, 1992).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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