They are the sign of a desire, of a trust in the recipient, they lay bare the individual behind the writer, a final trace of the writing hand on the finished work - intimately subjected to the particular gaze of a close friend, a peer or an influential critic.
Ink and watercolour portrait of the poet Paul Verlaine by his friend Marie Crance, bearing the artist's signature and the handwritten caption “Paul Verlaine à l'hôpital”.
A single sheet, presented in a frame with a mount. An inscription on the back of the frame—“written in the margin (by the framer): ‘For Messrs. Thénot and Lercey, 25 April 1894’”—provides a likely terminus post quem for the drawing.
Marie Crance (1860–1945), nicknamed Marie-aux-fleurs, was at the time the companion of the illustrator Frédéric-Auguste Cazals, whom she married in 1912. A laundress, maid, and occasional singer in the poet’s favourite dives, she was also a loyal friend and caretaker to Verlaine. She tended his ailing leg when he avoided doctors and took refuge in modest hotels on the outskirts of Paris. Cheerful, unpretentious, and full of life, she also visited him during his hospital stays at Broussais, Tenon, Cochin, and Saint-Antoine, where she made this bust portrait of the poet—his piercing gaze and stiffened figure shaped by age and chronic rheumatism. Verlaine dedicated a sonnet to her in the second edition of Dédicaces, along with a charming drawing (Verlaine, Lettres inédites [...], ed. Georges Zayed, 1976, p. 45):
« Je veux donc dire de ma voix la mieux timbrée,
Et les tracer du bec de ma meilleure plume,
Vos mérites et vos vertus dans l’amertume
Douce de vous savoir d’un autre énamourée
Mais d’un autre... »
A moving portrait of the wandering poet, curiously resilient, his form dissolving into the softness of the watercolour.
Very rare and sought-after first edition of one of the most important autobiographical works in the history of French literature, masterpiece and major work by George Sand.
Beige half sheepskin bindings, spine with four raised bands gilt tooled and framed in gilt and black, gilt tooling at top and bottom of spines, marbled paper boards, original wrappers preserved for each of the volumes, elegant imitation bindings.
Provenance: Pierre Boutellier, with his ex-libris on the front pastedown of the first volume.
Presentation copy signed by George Sand to his great friend the poet Maurice Rollinat, on the half-title of the first volume.
Pleasant and extremely rare copy, exceptionally containing a signed inscription by George Sand, almost free of any foxing and housed in uniform romantic style bindings.
First edition, printed on vélin d'Angoulême paper, with the usual misprints and including the six condemned poems, one of the few copies given to the author and “intended for friends who do not deliver literary services”.
Full emerald morocco binding, signed by Marius Michel, original wrappers preserved.
Exceptional inscription to a childhood friend, banker and intellectual, one of the rare contemporary inscriptions that were not motivated by judicial necessity or editorial interests.
Indeed, even the few examples on papier hollande were largely devoted to strategic gifts in order to counter or reduce the wrath of justice that, in June 1857, had not yet returned its decision. Poulet-Malassis will hold a bitter memory of it: “Baudelaire got his hands on all thick paper copies and addressed them to more or less influential people as a means of corruption. Since they have not got him out of trouble, I believe he would do well to ask for them back.”
Baudelaire's correspondence makes it possible to define quite precisely the different types of inscriptions the poet made on the publication of his collection. He himself sent a list to de Broise to mention those to whom the press deliveries were dedicated, mainly possible judicial intercessors and influential literary critics. The poet then requires “twenty-five [copies] on ordinary paper, intended for friends who do not deliver literary services.” A letter to his mother tells us that he only got twenty. Some of them were sent in June 1857 to his friends, including one for Louis-Ludovic Tenré. Others were saved by the poet or offered late like the ones for Achille Bourdilliat and Jules de Saint-Félix.
If Tenré, this childhood friend whom Baudelaire has just found again in December 1856, is honored with one of the poet's rare personal copies of the Fleurs du mal publication, the three misprints he immediately noticed having been carefully corrected by hand, it is not on account of a service delivered or in anticipation of an immediate benefit. However, as always with Baudelaire, neither did he send his masterpiece to his boarding companion from Louis-le-Grand school as a simple “reminder of good friendship.”
As early as 1848, Louis-Ludovic Tenré took over from his father, the publisher Louis Tenré, who, like other major publishers, moved into investment, providing loans and discounts exclusively for those in the book industry. These bookseller-bankers played a key role in the fragile publishing economy and contributed to the extreme diversity of literary production in the nineteenth century, supporting the activities of small but bold publishers and liquidating other major judicial clashes.
In December 1856, Baudelaire tells Poulet-Malassis that he had deposited an expired banknote with this “old school mate,” which Tenré, out of friendship, agreed to accept. It was the initial advance for “the printing of one thousand copies [of a collection] of verses entitled Les Fleurs du Mal.” With this copy hot off the presses, Baudelaire then offers Tenré the precious result of the work discounted by his new banker. It is the beginning of a long financial relationship. Amongst all of Baudelaire's discounters, Louis-Ludovic Tenré will be the poet's favorite and the only one to whom an autographed work will be sent.
Nicolas Stokopf, in his work Les Patrons du Second Empire, banquiers et financiers parisiens, dedicates a chapter to Louis-Ludovic Tenré and evokes the privileged relationship between the poet and this unusual and scholarly financier, Paraguay consul and Latin America specialist, also the author of a significant work, Les états américains, published for the 1867 Exposition Universelle, of which he was a commissioner.
Even the poet's countless financial hazards will never cause lasting damage to their agreement. The trust this publisher's son he puts in Baudelaire is down to Tenré's interest in literature, as is evidenced by this excellently preserved copy given to him by Baudelaire. Quoted many times in his correspondence, and in his “carnet” – a kind of poetic diary written between 1861 and 1863 – Louis-Ludovic Tenré quickly became the main financial interlocutor for the poet whose life is, nevertheless, affected by the fear of his creditors.
“There is an astounding incoherence between Baudelaire's blinding intelligence and the chaos of his material life. He spends his time in his correspondence chasing money, his letters are almost exclusively about that. He is incapable of managing a budget of 200 francs per month and is in debt everywhere, even though he is not entitled to it, since he is under guardianship. Worse still: his annuity serves him only to pay the interest on the loans he takes out at very high rates. It is a vicious circle: he himself digs his own financial black hole.” (Baudelaire, Marie-Christine Natta).
The 1857 signed copies of Fleurs du Mal are amongst the most prestigious works and have for a long time had a prominent place in major private collections (Marquis du Bourg de Bozas, Jacques Doucet, Sacha Guitry, Pierre Berès, Colonel Sickles, Pierre Bergé, Bernard Loliée, Pierre Leroy, Jean Bonna, etc.).
This work's utmost importance in the history of literature, well beyond French literature, as well as the particular history of its publication, have contributed to the early interest in the first edition and even more so for the rare copies given out by the author.
In 1860, during the auction of all of Custine's property, who died in August 1857, the poems of a salacious poet dedicated to a writer of poor moral standards were little appreciated. However, by 1865, Baudelaire himself states that “for two years we have been asking everywhere [Les Fleurs du Mal], and in sales, they make quite a lot”. And by 1873 and 1874, the Gautier and Daumier library sales mention their precious copies and “the handwritten ex-dono” with which they are adorned.
Since then, the inscribed copies have been described and referenced, which has enabled bibliographers to count and allocate 55 copies of the first edition of Fleurs du Mal that were handed out by Baudelaire. Amongst them, some have been destroyed (like Mérimée's copy, during a fire at his home), others are only mentioned in the correspondence of the person to whom they are dedicated, but were never known (particularly the copies given to Flaubert, Deschamps, Custine and Molènes), several of them only made a brief appearance in the nineteenth century before disappearing (amongst which we include the copies of Honoré Daumier, Louis Ulbach and Champfleury). Finally, some major international institutions, libraries and museums acquired them very early on for their collections (including those of Saint-Victor, Le Maréchal, Nadar, Pincebourde, etc.).
Since the Second World War, only thirty or so copies of Fleurs du Mal featuring an inscription by Baudelaire have appeared in libraries, on public sale or in bookshop catalogs, each time being subject to specific attention from all of the professionals, international institutions and bibliophiles that have been informed.
Perfectly set, with its wrappers, in a Jansenist binding by one of the major bookbinders of the end of the 19th century, Louis-Ludovic Tenré's very beautiful copy, one of twenty reserved for the author, enriched with precious handwritten corrections and given by Baudelaire on publication, appears as a remarkable witness to the specific conditions under which this legendary work was published.
Exceptionally rare autograph satirical poem by Louis Aragon, entitled Distiques pour une Carmagnole de la Honte, written between September 1944 and February 1945. 26 lines penned in black ink on a single leaf, with a note from the author in blue ink at the foot of the page.
Our manuscript belongs to a group of thirteen poems composed during the first half of 1945, intended for publication in a poetry anthology (Aragon, published by Pierre Seghers in Paris, Collection “Poètes d’aujourd’hui” no. 2, 20 July 1945). It was sent by Aragon as a working copy to his editor and friend Claude Roy. This autograph poem is the only known manuscript of the Distiques, with neither manuscript nor proofs held in the extensive Triolet-Aragon archives at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
