BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules) - Lot 110

BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules) Le Pacha. Rythme oublié. Caen, Imprimerie de F. Le Blanc-Hardel, 1869. Small square in-12, paperback, uncut, modern ochre half-chagrin folder and slipcase. First and only edition, printed in an edition of 36 copies hors commerce. This is the last of Barbey d'Aurevilly's works published by Trebutien, who died in 1870. "I'll append a singular jest that I improvised the other evening, in jest, at the home of these demoiselles de Bachelier. These demoiselles de Bachelier are two old maids who were very beautiful [...] and at whose house I like to spend my evenings intimately with the White Angel. [...] These ladies enjoyed making cut-outs to stick on the windows of their living room. There was one (of these cut-outs) that represented a Pasha in front of whom a Circassian jumper was dancing, and which inspired me to write the poetry without rhythm that I will send you, and which seems to me a little too Rabelaisian to be part of our Forgotten Rhythms. It is a forgotten Rhythm that we will forget, but which will entertain you" (Barbey d'Aurevilly, letter to Trebutien, November 12, 1854, in Correspondance générale, IV, 1854/41, p. 114). The prose poem was not included in Lemerre's 1870 edition of Rythmes oubliées. Paperback copy: included in the exhibition organized in Paris in 1989 to mark the centenary of Barbey's death (cf. cat. Barbey d'Aurevilly, no. 65). Cover cleaned and stitching renewed. Some light spotting.