La Vogue

Complete set of the first quarter published (11 April-12-19 July 1886) of the symbolist journal La Vogue, the most important literary review of the late nineteenth century, containing the first printing of Rimbaud’s Illuminations. Issues 1 - 12, published weekly, were gathered under a quarterly wrapper and offered for sale in September 1886. No deluxe copies were issued for this first quarter of the journal, which had a very limited print run. Copy as published, spine restored, upper corner of the second cover lacking.

First appearance of Rimbaud’s Illuminations in the journal that served as a refuge for the poètes maudits and introduced Walt Whitman to the French readership.

Numerous contributions, including Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé, Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Charles Morice, Paul Adam, René Ghil, Jules Laforgue, Léo d’Orfer, Stendhal, Charles Henry, Stuart Merrill (translated by Mallarmé), Édouard Dujardin, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Félix Fénéon, Paul Bourget, Walt Whitman, Teodor de Wyzewa, Fedor Dostoevsky, Charles Vignier, Jacques Casanova de Seingalt.

Presented in a grey half-morocco clamshell case, smooth spine, marble-covered paper boards, marbled endpapers; case with grey morocco border, signed by Boichot.

“In 1886, he [Rimbaud] was published in La Vogue. The title of the magazine was a guarantee of temporary success. On the contrary it was lasting, because Illuminations thus revealed [...] far surpassed the fashionable trinkets of the time and went to the heart of the matter” (Pierre Brunel, Arthur Rimbaud, ou L'éclatant désastre).

The journal effectively revealed Rimbaud to the public by publishing with Verlaine's help the first issues of the poem Les premières communions and especially Les Illuminations (no. 5 to 9) which also included eleven other poems by Rimbaud dating from 1872. It also includes the first two stanzas of his disturbing poem Le Cœur volé, probably recounting Rimbaud’s rape, as well as another piece titled Tête de faune.

The poems of Illuminations were first printed after many twists and turns: the manuscripts entrusted to Verlaine during his last meeting with Rimbaud passed from hand to hand before being published serially from 13 May 1886 by the director of La Vogue Léo d'Orfer and its editor-in-chief, the early Symbolist writer Gustave Kahn. After a quarrel with the latter, d'Orfer left the journal and took the manuscripts of the last five poems of Illuminations, which were later published posthumously in 1895 by Vanier. Verlaine procured Rimbaud manuscripts for La Vogue while mourning his époux infernal and genius poet who had long since abandoned his poems as well as literature in general. As Alain Bardel notes, “From June 7 onwards, Rimbaud's name [misspelled ‘Raimbaud’ on p. 233] is preceded by the word ‘feu’ (deceased) in the table of contents of La Vogue. Rumors of the poet's death spread throughout Paris. Rimbaud was actually in Tadjourah preparing his caravan, loaded with rifles that he planned to sell at a good price to Menelik II, King of Shoa.” In issue no. 11 he is even described as an “equivocal and glorious deceased” by admirers of his work, who knew nothing of his activities in Africa. Kahn continued the publication of Illuminations in La Vogue, eventually completed in issue no. 9 of June 21-27, 1886. 

According to Michel Murat, the first edition of Illuminations a few months later owes much to this pre-publication in La Vogue, as its young publisher Félix Fénéon “did not see the manuscript up close and edited the booklet using the pre-first edition [in La Vogue], without referring back to the manuscript.” However, Fénéon changed the order of the poems later restored by the authors of Rimbaud's Pléiade (updated complete works edition) to the original arrangement printed in La Vogue. This order still prevails today up to most recent editions.

1886, the true “year of free verse” (Eric Athenot) for La Vogue, did not end with Rimbaud: “The publication in La Vogue from June 28 to August 2 of texts by [Walt] Whitman translated by Laforgue accompanied the emergence of free verse in France, drawing Whitman into the Symbolist movement and ensuring him lasting visibility in France [...] 1886 brought together Laforgue, Whitman, and Rimbaud in publications that finally made the work of the latter two visible” (L'appel de l'étranger, Traduire en langue française en 1886). In the pages of the magazine, Jules Laforgue initiated the meeting of these two giants by publishing the very first translations of Leaves of Grass alongside the first printing of Illuminations. Without their knowledge, Rimbaud and Whitman championed Symbolism and the beginnings of free verse through their presence in this journal of the newly created movement. A few months after the publication of the Illuminations in La Vogue, Verlaine also recalled, in his preface to the first edition, the Anglophone influence that pervades Rimbaud’s collection, the title itself said to have been inspired by his celebrated travels to London.

The first quarter of this important, albeit short-lived, periodical also contains the second series of Verlaine’s Poètes maudits, Jules Laforgue's Le Concile féerique, Félix Fénéon's study of the Impressionist painters, and Jean Moréas and Paul Adam's Thé chez Miranda. Its contributors included Edouard Dujardin, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Charles Henry, Charles Morice, Huysmans, and Stéphane Mallarmé.

A very rare copy of the first ever publication of Les Illuminations, a cornerstone to any collection Rimbaud collection. The publication of La Vogue marked a founding moment in the publication of Rimbaud's poems and is considered by André Guyaux “the real date of publication of his works”.