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Details
BARBEY D’AUREVILLY, Jules Amédée (1808-1889). Les Diaboliques. Paris: E. Dentu, 1874.
12° (172 x 101mm). (Page 131 with corner clipped, blank verso of final leaf soiled.) Contemporary citron morocco by Gayler Hirou for the author inlaid in red, sides with central gilt decoration enclosing a red morocco polygon onlay and large corner-pieces with onlaid flower heads, gilt spine compartments inlaid in red, one with title label, gilt turn-ins, gilt and marbled edges. Provenance: Michel Ménard (three-line presentation inscription to him from the author, written in red ink, on front blank) -- P. Groensteen (pencil attribution) – Louis de Sadeleer (booklabel).
FIRST EDITION. A FINE PRESENTATION COPY BOUND AT THE TIME BY GAYLER HIROU ACCORDING TO BARBEY'S PRECISE DIRECTIONS.
Like Baudelaire and Flaubert 17 years earlier, Barbey d'Aurevilly was sued for an affront to public decency when Les Diaboliques was released . He agreed to remove his book from sale and the charges against him were dismissed. Nevertheless, 480 copies from an edition of 2,200 were seized and destroyed. He was unable to reprint it before 1882. (En français dans le texte, 300).
A friend of Léon Bloy and Barbey d'Aurevilly, Michel Ménard was a mystic poet, author of a poem of 5,000 verses: L'Epopée du Sang. Born in the mid-1850s, he was a private tutor in Belgium from 1874 to 1877. He died very young, at the end of 1884 or beginning of 1885 in a Spanish monastery. Barbey may have met Michel Ménard through their common friend Léon Bloy, though, earlier, he had befriended his elder brother, Louis Ménard, a military doctor. Barbey liked the young poet and offered him a few of his books, aside from this copy of Les Diaboliques: a manuscript copy, in Léon Bloy's hand, of Rhythmes oubliés (no date), Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummell (1879) and Une Histoire sans nom (1882). The inscription, written in red ink on the free front endpaper in Barbey's usual calligraphic manner, reads: 'A Michel Ménard / qui n'est pas Michel l'Archange, - / mais Diaboliquement à lui' [To Michel Ménard, who is not Michael the Archangel, but diabolically to him]. As he did for all the books which he cherished and wanted to offer to his close relatives, Barbey had this copy bound by Gayler Hirou, his favourite binder, in citron morocco inlaid with red morocco. The copy last belonged to Baron Louis de Sadeleer, certainly the finest collector of 19th-century French literature since the Second World War.
Regarding Michel Ménard, cf. Graham, Passages d'Encre, 9: for the manuscript of Rhythmes oubliés inscribed to the poet, also in Jean Bonna's collection.
12° (172 x 101mm). (Page 131 with corner clipped, blank verso of final leaf soiled.) Contemporary citron morocco by Gayler Hirou for the author inlaid in red, sides with central gilt decoration enclosing a red morocco polygon onlay and large corner-pieces with onlaid flower heads, gilt spine compartments inlaid in red, one with title label, gilt turn-ins, gilt and marbled edges. Provenance: Michel Ménard (three-line presentation inscription to him from the author, written in red ink, on front blank) -- P. Groensteen (pencil attribution) – Louis de Sadeleer (booklabel).
FIRST EDITION. A FINE PRESENTATION COPY BOUND AT THE TIME BY GAYLER HIROU ACCORDING TO BARBEY'S PRECISE DIRECTIONS.
Like Baudelaire and Flaubert 17 years earlier, Barbey d'Aurevilly was sued for an affront to public decency when Les Diaboliques was released . He agreed to remove his book from sale and the charges against him were dismissed. Nevertheless, 480 copies from an edition of 2,200 were seized and destroyed. He was unable to reprint it before 1882. (En français dans le texte, 300).
A friend of Léon Bloy and Barbey d'Aurevilly, Michel Ménard was a mystic poet, author of a poem of 5,000 verses: L'Epopée du Sang. Born in the mid-1850s, he was a private tutor in Belgium from 1874 to 1877. He died very young, at the end of 1884 or beginning of 1885 in a Spanish monastery. Barbey may have met Michel Ménard through their common friend Léon Bloy, though, earlier, he had befriended his elder brother, Louis Ménard, a military doctor. Barbey liked the young poet and offered him a few of his books, aside from this copy of Les Diaboliques: a manuscript copy, in Léon Bloy's hand, of Rhythmes oubliés (no date), Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummell (1879) and Une Histoire sans nom (1882). The inscription, written in red ink on the free front endpaper in Barbey's usual calligraphic manner, reads: 'A Michel Ménard / qui n'est pas Michel l'Archange, - / mais Diaboliquement à lui' [To Michel Ménard, who is not Michael the Archangel, but diabolically to him]. As he did for all the books which he cherished and wanted to offer to his close relatives, Barbey had this copy bound by Gayler Hirou, his favourite binder, in citron morocco inlaid with red morocco. The copy last belonged to Baron Louis de Sadeleer, certainly the finest collector of 19th-century French literature since the Second World War.
Regarding Michel Ménard, cf. Graham, Passages d'Encre, 9: for the manuscript of Rhythmes oubliés inscribed to the poet, also in Jean Bonna's collection.
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