Lot n° 141
Estimation :
10000 - 12000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 6 500EUR
VERLAINE Paul (1844-1896).
COLLECTION of 6 autograph MANUSCRIPTS, 4 of them signed, 1884-1891; 27 pages in-8 or in-4, window-mounted (except one) and interleaved with the corresponding printed texts, all bound in one volume in-4, English post-binding, red morocco, ribbed spine, gilt fillets, dark green morocco lining with gilt framing, white moiré silk endpapers, gilt head (hinges rubbed).
Collection of six prose by Verlaine. La bonne goutte, signed " Paul Verlaine (4 p. in-8, on administrative paper of the Assistance publique), with erasures, corrections and additions, and some variants with the text collected in the Œuvres posthumes under the title La Goutte (t. I, p. 242). A short story inspired by Verlaine's return to the country, in a state of poverty, after his stay in prison. A beggar invites him to a cabaret, "the best drop I ever drank in my life"... A note in the upper left corner of the first page indicates that Verlaine intended this text for the Mémoires d'un veuf (Memoirs of a widower); having crossed out this title, Verlaine replaces it in the margin with : "Stories like this (Adventure of a simple man series)" Au Pays du Mufle by Laurent Tailhade (4 p. small in-4), a review of the collection Au pays du Mufle by Laurent TAILHADE (1891), of which Jacques Borel was unable to find the publication before the Œuvres posthumes (t. I, p. 289), in a different and largely abbreviated version; the last page, entirely unpublished, was added after the fact: "What can I add that is not already a repetition, for it has already been a good many months since the publication of the Pays du Mufle ? God is my witness that the present article was written when the deliciously terrible book was being published, and that several newspapers, when asked, politely rejected these lines, which were nonetheless very nice and very good! [...] This will appear where and when? but will appear, when it should be by force! Some day I will write the history of this little work and its tragi-comic odyssey. In the meantime, Laurent Tailhade is working on a series of Ballads, compared to which the libel we are talking about at the moment borders on insipidness! And that he makes thus well, and that it is kind of him! Quelques uns de mes rêves (10 ff. large in-8, written on the front, signed "Paul Verlaine"). This is the first chapter of the Mémoires d'un veuf (L. Vanier, 1886), published as a pre-original in the magazine Le Décadent of October 20, 1886 under the title " Un de mes rêves ". Some erasures and corrections, and variants with the edited text.
Conte de fées (4 ff. in-4, filled on the front with a small tight handwriting, signed " Paul Verlaine "), text published in La Revue Indépendante in March 1888 (whose stamp appears on the first page), and collected in volume I of the Œuvres posthumes in Histoires comme ça, of which it forms the first chapter. Numerous erasures and corrections. The original title, partly crossed out, was Contes pour ma fille. Under the features of Jacques Trébois, one guesses Verlaine himself, separated from the "very well loved" woman, towards whom he had all the wrongs, and from a child "that only circumstances prevented him from seeing" (here a girl). Café de lettres (2 p. large in-8, filled with a small handwriting, signed " Paul Verlaine "), published in the newspaper Lutèce (July 20-27, 1884), and collected, as a supplement to the Mémoires d'un veuf, in 1903 in the Œuvres posthumes (t. III). The manuscript presents numerous variants with the published text. The scene is set in an "improbable literary cabaret", the Envol (the Café Voltaire, place de l'Odéon). One recognizes some of the protagonists: in Léo, Léon Valade, a youthful friend of Verlaine, as well as Albert Mérat, here under the guise of Albrecht, and finally Franz the illustrious for François Coppée. Pablo could be Verlaine himself... [Pauvre Lélian] (2 p. ½ in-8), untitled fragment of the notice that Verlaine dedicated to himself under the anagram of Pauvre Lélian for the new edition (1888) of Poètes Maudits. The text, which is crucial, quoted in quotation marks as "a long digression" in the chapter, is the argument by which Verlaine-Lélian rejects the attacks on his poetry after his conversion to Catholicism: "It is certain that the poet must, like any artist, after intensity, the indispensable heroic condition, seek unity. Unity of tone, which is not monotony, a style recognizable in such and such a place of his work taken at random, habits, attitudes; unity of thought too [...] Now do the Catholic verses of Poor Lélian cover his other verses literally [...] A hundred times yes. The tone is the same in both cases, - styles, habits, attitudes, - serious and simple here, there embellished, languid, irritated, laughing and all, but the same tone everywhere "... Variations with the final text.
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