Les Épaves.

Frontispiece by F. Rops printed on chine volant, with explanation on verso of separate leaf (often found bound before) also on chine volant. Title, ‘Bruxelles’ and Explication du Frontispice printed in red.

8vo (175 x 105mm). [8], 163pp. Contemporary morocco-backed marbled paper boards (a little scuffed and worn at corners).

Brussels [Typographie de Ch. Vanderauwera]: Chez tous les libraires, 1874.

Third edition of this collection of poetry, first published in 1866. The splendid pictorial title, taken from the first edition, is by the Belgian artist and devotee of Baudelaire, Félicien Rops (1833-98) and depicts the seven cardinal sins represented as plants, above which the head of Baudelaire appears in a medallion, being whisked to the heavens on the back of a chimera.

Roughly translated as 'scraps', Les Épaves was not intended as a collection of entirely new work, but rather a compilation of odd and recent verse; it includes the 'condemned pieces' that were suppressed and removed from Les Fleurs du Mal, 'Lesbos', 'Femmes Damnées', Le Léthé, 'A Celle Qui Est Trop Gaie', 'Les Bijoux' and 'Les Métamorphoses du Vampire'.

Carteret, Romantique I, 128. Talvart & Place I, 288. Thieme/Becker XXVIII, 587-8. Vicaire I, 348. [Third edition not in Clouzot].     

Stock Code: 228660