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7 000 €

Réf : 43067

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Jules BARBEY D'AUREVILLY

Du dandysme et de G. Brummell

B. Mancel, Caen 1845, 11,5x15cm, relié.

First edition, one of the extremely rare copies on Hollande fort paper, the only large paper copies, of which a few are on colored paper.
Contemporary half black shagreen with black paper boards, spine in five compartments with black fillets, corners a little rubbed.
With an autograph inscription from Trebutien to Georges Lesnard.
A little light foxing to endpapers.
In his Annales de Normandie, Jean-Luc Piré gives an analysis of the importance of the collaboration between Barbey and Trebutien, devoting an entire paragraph to Dandysme to underline the importance of Trebutien's contribution to this little work, among the rarest and most sought-after by Barbey.
“We are familiar with the monumental correspondence Barbey maintained “monkishly” with his friend over the course of twenty-six years…The presence of Trebutien is almost constant in the Aurevillian universe. The “Sagittarius” was not far off when he wrote to his correspondent: “Your name, interwoven with mine, is as well known as my own…Whoever says d'Aurevilly, says Trebutien.”
Even in the very midst of Dandysme, Barbey pays homage to his publisher and friend: “I ask the thirty or forty people who will read this their leave to introduce M. Trebutien as a friend whose merit is greater than my own, and whose imagination and knowledge – often separate, but united in him – need no personal friendship to impress those who appreciate such things.”
The story of Dandysme, more than any other of Barbey's books, is tied to his publisher, friend, and active collaborator. Initially conceived simply as an article on Brummel, who had died three years previously, Du Dandysme was to take on book form thanks to a number of documents provided by Trebutien, who served to provide Barbey with documentary material: “as for Brummell, I've literally followed all your advice. I've read everything you recommended.” Having received two rejections for the article from the Revue des Deux Mondes and the Journal des Débats, d'Aubervilly gave Trebutien the green light for publication. Barbey was to take this book to heart: the exchange of proofs and corrections was incessant. In October, he decided to add notes. The collaboration with Trebutien took on particular meaning: “You have taught me to love Brummell once more. Without you, I would have thrown him on the dust-heap to repay the disappointments he caused…But you have given me back the taste for him and so, urged on by you, here I am immersed in the cult of detail, of little dots and shaded lines, of all those corrections that make up a finished work for which I haven't the strength, being a man of immediate passions, a brutal and rapid artist, animalistically reduced by his passions!”
When, in 1850, Trebutien suggested publishing Prophètes du Passé, Barbey agreed in the following terms: “We'll correct the proofs like those for Brummell, won't we, my friend? I like that way of working, it is so inspiring. If a thought, a note, a little change should come to me, I can send it on to you.”
Whereas the first edition strengthened the friendship between the poet and his publisher, J-L. Piré notes that the reprinting of the work was, on the contrary, a source of friction: Barbey suggested to his friend (on the 2^nd July 1858) that they let Poulet-Malassis reprint the work on Brummell…: “if you authorize me to deal with the sour Poulet [lit.: chicken]. We'll divide equally what he gives us for the Brummell and its reprint.” But Trebutien despised Poulet-Malassis: “a socialist of the worst kind…he was the editor of one of the basest newspapers of the time…He established in Paris a bookshop where he reprints all the impure and impious works of the 18^th century.” (Piré Jean-Luc, in: Hors-série des Annales de Normandie. G.S. Trebutien [Préface par J.-Cl. Polet ] 1985, pp. 3-198.)
 
An exceptional copy printed on large Holland paper in a sober contemporary binding. 

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