Poetry

Autograph poem signed by poet François Coppée entitled "Lied".
Light foxing to left margin of the leaf.
The signed poem, 14 lines in black ink on one leaf, was included in the collection "L'exilée" published in 1877 under the same title:
"Rougissante et tête baissée,
Je la vois me sourire encor.
Pour le doigt de ma fiancée*
Qu'on me fasse un bel anneau d'or.
Elle part, mais bonne et fidèle ;
Je vais l'attendre en m'affligeant.
Pour garder ce qui me vient d'elle
Qu'on me fasse un coffret d'argent.
J'ai sur le coeur un poids énorme ;
L'exil est trop dur et trop long.
Pour que je me repose et dorme
Qu'on me fasse un cercueil de plomb."
François Coppée. ("Blushing and with lowered head, / I see her smiling at me still. / For my fiancée's finger / Let me have a beautiful gold ring made. / She leaves, but good and faithful; / I will wait for her in sorrow. / To keep what comes to me from her / Let me have a silver casket made. / I have an enormous weight on my heart; / Exile is too harsh and too long. / So that I may rest and sleep / Let me have a lead coffin made." François Coppée.)

First edition, one of 48 copies on pur fil, the only deluxe copies.

Work decorated with illustrations by Jean Hugo.

Light rubbing to extremities of the slipcase.

Superb binding in dark exotic wood marquetry signed Pierre-Lucien Martin, dated 1962.

Binding in chocolate brown box leather with bands, smooth spine, gilt title lengthwise, first cover formed of a mosaic arrangement of dark wood pieces, with grain arranged in opposite directions, bearing the title engraved vertically and the author's name revealed in acrostic, second cover formed of a large panel of the same wood with unfolded grain bordered in chocolate box leather, endpapers and pastedowns of chocolate paper, top edge gilt over deckled edges, covers and spine preserved, slipcase of chocolate paper bordered in chocolate box leather, interior lined with brown felt, elegant ensemble signed Pierre-Lucien Martin and dated on the rear pastedown 1962.

First edition, one of 75 numbered copies on surfine colored paper.
Work illustrated with 3 aquatints by Mimi Parent.
One scratch with three light stains on the first cover.
Handsome copy.
Precious and surrealist autograph inscription signed by José Pierre to Marie Cermínová Toyen: "A Toyen, les violons monégasques fabriqués secrètement dans les presbytères en partant de l'anémone de mer, José." (To Toyen, the Monégasque violins secretly manufactured in presbyteries starting from the sea anemone, José.)
Signatures of José Pierre and Mimi Parent below the justification page.

Autograph letter dated 3 June 1941, signed and addressed to Frédéric Lefèvre, comprising 40 lines in blue ink on two pages of a bifolium, written from Lyon.

Folds from original mailing, envelope present.

During these troubled times, Frédéric Lefèvre was difficult to reach for his friend Francis Carco: "J'ai appris par Raymond Millet - qui me donne ton adresse - que tu es à Vichy ! On m'avait dit que tu étais retourné à Paris... [...] c'est pour cette raison que je ne t'ai pas envoyé mon dernier livre mais je dois recevoir des exemplaires prochainement et le premier sera pour toi."

Francis Carco discusses his future plans: "J'irai me poser en Haute Savoie afin d'écrire le roman que je dois à Gringoire. [...] un éditeur suisse désire publier une petite plaquette de mes vers inédits. N'aurais-tu pas une copie de ceux que je t'ai envoyés à Cannes, l'automne dernier, et de ceux qui commencent par : C'est le pays de Gérard de Nerval..."

First edition of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle's first book, one of 150 numbered copies on Hollande laid paper, the only deluxe copies.
Precious autograph inscription signed by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle : « to Charles Maurras this anxious testimony. Pierre Drieu la Rochelle ex. sergeant in the 146^th Infantry. October 1^st, 1917. »
Important testimony of the young Drieu la Rochelle's admiration – then in full intellectual development – for the « master of Martigues » to whom he sends this copy of his war poems composed in 1916 after being wounded at Verdun.
Demobilized and disillusioned by a war for which he had enlisted hoping to wash away the defeat of 1870, Drieu oscillates between Aragon's communism and Maurras's integral nationalism. Having discovered the latter in adolescence, he considers him from then on as one of his intellectual masters alongside Maurice Barrès, Rudyard Kipling and Friedrich Nietzsche. In November 1918, he would write to him: « It is you, it is your prudent thought that destroyed in me, around 1915 or 1916, my Germanic conception of joyful war. Having fought in the infantry during the first winter, I already knew all too well that war was not joyful... »
Glorifying Maurras as « the greatest political thinker of the last century » (Gilles), he is – like many young people of his generation – seduced by the patriotic aura as well as the taste for action and morality embodied by the leader of Action Française. Throughout the 1920s, the ambivalent Drieu will hesitate on which political path to take, before evolving toward fascism, definitively abandoning Maurrassian conservative ideology.

Very rare typographic edition published one year after the facsimile edition from the Montfaucon Research Center and without Sophie Podolski's consent.

This is why this edition was withdrawn from sale; it is illustrated with drawings and includes a preface by Philippe Sollers.

Spine and boards slightly and marginally lightened, otherwise a rare and handsome copy.
 

Autograph quatrain and tercet from Cocteau's youth, comprising fourteen stanzas signed by Jean Cocteau, with fifteen lines written in black ink and titled "Pour Abel Bonnard".
This manuscript poem, bearing two autograph corrections by Jean Cocteau, was later published in the collection "Le Prince frivole," issued by Mercure de France in 1910—the poet’s second published work.
On the verso of the bifolium, Cocteau drafted an early version of the poem: the title, the first line, and the very beginning of the second, with a slight variation from the final version.
This manuscript of Le Prince frivole was long thought to be lost: “Le manuscrit original de la main de Cocteau manque” (Œuvres poétiques complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, p. 1842).
The work, praised by Marcel Proust, who hailed Cocteau as a “Banville de vingt ans qu’attendent de plus hautes destinées”, was later disavowed by the author, who eventually forbade its reprinting.
"Pour Abel Bonnard" appears among the suite of eight sonnets from the Hôtel Biron (Pour mes amis, Pour Marcel Cruppi, Pour Reynaldo Hahn, Pour Pierre Mortier, Pour Francis de Croisset, Pour Abel Bonnard, Pour le comte Robert de Montesquiou Fezensac, Pour Auguste Rodin, and Pour Elle), which were not given dedication titles in the printed edition:
"Un ogre a fait s’enfuir dryade, fée ou muse...
C’est déjà loin nos promenades au couvent !
Vous cherchiez à chaque herbe un beau nom très savant
Insoucieux et gai comme un gamin qui muse
...
Armés d’outils de fer contre un grand parc qui dort
Marchait la horde interminable des vandales
Et vous le défendiez avec vos armes d’or !"

Autograph letter signed by the dandy count, 46 lines written in black ink recto-verso, on Hotel de France de Pau letterhead, addressed to a poet friend.
Fold marks inherent to postal handling.
The poet expresses surprise at his friend's reproaches: "Pourquoi parlez-vous du mal que je pourrais vous faire ?... Alors il faudrait bien essayer, pour ne pas vous désobéir mais il me semble que je m'y mettrai sans conviction." (Why do you speak of the harm I could do to you?... Then I would have to try, so as not to disobey you, but it seems to me I would do so without conviction.) and leans rather toward a misunderstanding of his words: "Est-ce donc ainsi que vous avez interprété ma grande, dirai-je ma belle lettre à Lapauze (elle a droit aux anthologies)? Mais, dans ce cas, elle serait comminatoire. Si elle l'est, ce n'est pas pour vous." (Is this how you interpreted my great, I would say my beautiful letter to Lapauze (it deserves to be anthologized)? But, in that case, it would be threatening. If it is, it is not meant for you.)
But the poet-count-dandy does not hold it too much against her: "En attendant, ce qui est certain, c'est que je réciterai vos poèmes inédits, à l'inauguration du musée Ingres." (In the meantime, what is certain is that I will recite your unpublished poems at the inauguration of the Ingres museum.)

Autograph poem by Théodore de Banville, unsigned, entitled "Les exilés," comprising 20 lines in black ink with deletions and corrections.
Vertical and horizontal fold marks from mailing.
In the upper right-hand corner, the poet has written: “envoi de livre à Don Bernardo Calderon.”
This four-quatrain poem appears to be unpublished and was seemingly not included in the collection "Les exilés" published in 1867.
«Ce  livre, pleurant  sur la gloire
Et sur le bonheur envolé,
Renferme toute notre histoire?
Qui donc n'est pas un exilé ?
[...]

Heureux celui qui sous la mer,
Penchant son triste front blémi,
Poursuit sa route aride et nue
En tenant la main d'un ami !... »

Fine quatrain by Théodore de Banville, likely unpublished.

Autograph quatrain and tercet from Jean Cocteau's youth, comprising fourteen stanzas penned in black ink across 15 lines on grey paper bearing the poet’s silver monogram in the upper left corner.
Two pencil corrections in the poet’s hand.
This poem presents a variant of the version published in the collection "Le prince frivole," released by Mercure de France in 1910, Cocteau’s second published work; “Versailles dont on a tant dit” (appearing as “Le vieux parc dont on a tant dit” in the printed edition).



 

"The interposition of the poem between painting and music has therefore proven an excellent conductor between the arts thanks to the fact that Hahn scrupulously respected the spirit of the poem while preserving his autonomy in his composition. The link between music and painting is revealed after the other materials unite among themselves; it is in this alliance that an astonishing complementarity then operates, sought upon the soothing light of Albert Cuyp" (Nicolas Vardon)

New edition following the original of 1573. A handsome edition well printed in italics. It contains the Christian poetry, absent from the 1600 edition. Copy enhanced with a portrait of the author from around 1820.
Full glazed blonde calf Restoration binding signed at foot F. Bozérian jeune. Spine with raised bands decorated with 5 fleurons, fillets and roulettes on the bands. Date at foot in blind. Boards ruled in blind with frame roulette composed of interlaced circles. Interior Greek key border. Edges gilt. A small fragment missing from head. Some traces of rubbing. Paper very fresh, the engraving has caused slight uniform foxing on the title page. A handsome copy.
The volume contains: Les amours de Diane; Les amours d'Hippolyte; Les dernières amours de Cléonice; Les Elégies; Les imitations de l'Arioste; Les meslanges contenant Les diverses amours, les bergeries et masquarades, les épitaphes, les prières et oeuvres chrétiennes.
Desportes' poetry was durably influenced and shaped by Italian literature. The author indeed returns to France after a journey to Italy where he underwent the influence of Petrarch - his first poems are moreover criticized as neo-Petrarchan. His first book appeared in a collective collection and gathered his poetry imitated from Ariosto. His clear, frank, mannerist and refined poetry, court poetry, eclipsed that of Ronsard at the court of Henri III. It was in turn criticized and replaced by that of Malherbe. Desportes' literature nonetheless constitutes an important aspect of Renaissance poetry.