First edition.
Black half morocco binding, spine with four raised bands adorned with gilt dotted fillets and double gilt compartments decorated at the corners, gilt date and the inscription "Ex. de J. Drouet" at the tail, marbled paper boards and endpapers, preserved covers and spine, top edge gilt, binding signed by René Aussourd.
Some minor foxing, mainly at the beginning and end of the volume.
Precious signed and inscribed copy by Victor Hugo to Juliette Drouet, the great love of his life: ‘To you, my lady. Humble homage. V.'
This copy comes from the library of Pierre Duché, who acquired Juliette Drouet's entire library and commissioned René Aussourd to bind the volumes uniformly, marking each with an identifying inscription at the foot of the spine.
Bookplates pasted on a pastedown and a flyleaf.
In late 1878, after more than forty years together, Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet finally moved in together at Avenue d'Eylau, in the small town house where the poet would spend his final years. "From that moment on, Juliette's life became little more than an unbroken sorrow, a servitude of every hour. She herself suffered from stomach cancer, knowing she was condemned—to die of hunger!" (Louis Guimbaud, Victor Hugo et Juliette Drouet, Paris, 1927). Despite her illness and severe physical weakness, she remained devotedly at Hugo's side as his caregiver. It was during this time that Bastien Lepage painted a strikingly realistic portrait of her: "From her goddess-like face, once serene and noble, the relentless illness had made a frail human visage, drawn and hollowed, furrowed with wrinkles—each one telling a story of pain." (ibid.)
Religions et religions was published two years before Juliette's death; is was one of the last books Hugo dedicated to the unwavering love of his life. In a final tribute to her lifelong devotion, he later offered her a photograph inscribed: "Fifty years—that is the most beautiful marriage."
Copy from the most intimate source.
First edition, very rare. Three states can be distinguished: the first, ours, is distinguished by the title page entitled Oeuvres posthumes, as is the half-title. The second state substitutes a new title page entitled Album d'un pessimiste, with the half-title still indicating Oeuvres posthumes (this is the state known and described by Clouzot). The third state has a new title page dated 1836, again entitled Album d'un pessimiste, with the half-title oeuvres posthumes (this is the most common state); however, the mention of a notice by L'Héritier has disappeared to make way for the mention of a biographical notice (extracted from Michaud's Biographie universelle). L'Heritier's notice was removed from the first state, as the publisher preferred not to include it for fear of offending certain contemporaries mentioned.
Rabbe's works are preceded by Victor Hugo's poem: A Alphonse Rabbe, which would later appear in Les chants du Crépuscule, published in 1836.
These posthumous works were collected and published by the writer's nephew Charles Rabbe, who received a subsidy from the Ministry of Public Instruction for this purpose.
Contemporary half black shagreen bindings. Spine with false raised bands decorated with blind thick fillets. Gilt title and volume numbers. Owner's name at foot: Gauger. Minor rubbing to headcaps. 2 corners slightly bumped. Very light scattered foxing. A handsome copy.
A dark and sombre writer, marked by failure and the futility of things, who died in 1829 from opium excess (it is unknown whether his death was suicide or an unfortunate dosage of opium), Rabbe would enchant Baudelaire, receive the touching solicitude of Victor Hugo, and André Breton would not forget him in his anthology. All of Rabbe's pages are filled with a sickly and feverish romanticism, haunted by pessimism and despair, of which his principal work that would make his reputation: Philosophie du désespoir, is emblematic of his profound melancholy and his cult of death. Essays, commentary and maxims, prose poems punctuate these posthumous works, a model of dark romanticism.
Of greatest interest is the exceptional rarity of this very first state of Alphonse Rabbe's major work, unknown to Clouzot and to most bibliographers. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France possesses only the second state, and French catalogues contain only copies dated 1836.
