Mademoiselle Fifi

First edition of Mademoiselle Fifi, published in Brussels by Henry Kistemaeckers in 1882. The volume brings together seven stories previously published in Gil Blas between December 1881 and March 1882, then revised by Maupassant for their first appearance in book form. The edition comprised 2,000 copies on laid paper and a further 50 on Japan paper; the present copy is from the regular issue on laid paper. Etched portrait of Maupassant by Just as frontispiece. Untrimmed.

Half raspberry morocco with corners by Blanchetière, his signature appearing at the head of the first free endpaper. Smooth spine decorated with a mosaic Prussian spiked helmet, a direct allusion to the young lieutenant nicknamed “Mademoiselle Fifi” by his fellow officers; date, publisher and place gilt at foot. Marbled paper boards, matching endleaves and pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt. An attractive copy.

Bookplate of Maurice Guibert (1856-1922), a zincographic reproduction printed in red after a drawing made for him by his friend Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1894. An amateur photographer and close companion of Lautrec, Guibert belonged to the artist’s intimate circle; a number of photographs and albums bear witness to their friendship.

he seven stories had first appeared in Gil Blas over a particularly productive few months for Maupassant: Une Aventure parisienne in December 1881, followed by Un Réveillon, La Bûche, Mots d’amour, Marroca, Le Lit, and finally Mademoiselle Fifi in March 1882. Gathered together in Brussels under a single title, the pieces passed very quickly from the daily press into book form, with the revisions and corrections Maupassant himself made to their first publication.

The title story returns to the Prussian occupation of 1870 through the figure of a brutal and conceited young officer nicknamed “Mademoiselle Fifi”. Blanchetière chose to make him almost an emblem of the volume: the mosaic spiked helmet on the spine is enough, without any caption, to evoke both the character and the military setting of the tale.

The copy continued its life in the library of Maurice Guibert, bearing the bookplate designed by Toulouse-Lautrec and acquiring a provenance closely associated with the artistic life of fin-de-siècle Paris. In Maurice Guibert’s library, the book thus entered a Parisian milieu not so far removed from the one Maupassant observed in his stories.