Paris et Bruxelles, 1874.
12mo of 332 pp., (1) l. Brown quarter-morocco, spine ribbed, top edge gilt over untrimmed edges, beige printed wrappers and spine bound in. Binding signed Blanchetière, circa 1915.
188 x 115 mm.
First edition, second state, of this masterpiece of French Romanticism (Emond Jaloux).
Carteret, II, 503; Clouzot 188; Vicaire, V, 103-104.
This kind of prose epic, in 6 songs, was published in Brussels by Lacroix and Verboeckoven in 1869.
Only 5 or 6 copies dated 1869 are known.
Lacroix sold his stock to a Brussels bookseller, Rosez, who put back on sale almost all the copies with a title and a wrapper bearing the address of Paris and Brussels and dated 1874.
“Copies of the second state are quite rare; their price keeps going up”. (Clouzot).
“I have not been able to see the 1869 edition, which is the original”. (Vicaire).
This magical and torturous book is the most disconcerting in French literature. Its theme remains man’s rebellion against God.
Suspected of insanity, Lautréamont nonetheless produced a hallucinatory work that has won him a growing readership.
Edmond sees in this work “The masterpiece of French Romanticism”.
Lautréamont has certainly reached one of the limits of literary creation.
The inventor of a style, like Rimbaud and Mallarmé, he opened up an immense career for the imaginary.
« O poulpe au regard de soie ! Toi dont l’âme est inséparable de la mienne : toi, le plus beau des habitants du globe terrestre et qui commandes à un sérail de quatre cents ventouses ».
Vividly reclaimed by the Surrealist school, he is in part the driving force behind the modern poetic spirit.
A precious untrimmed copy, with the original wrappers bound in, of this major book in the history of French literature.
