The Complete Works of Théophile Gautier. Edited, introduced, and translated from the French by Professor F. C. De Sumichrast. Complete in twelve volumes.

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

Published by Bigelow, Smith & Co., New York, 1910

First edition thus, limited to 1,000 numbered sets, printed for subscribers only [this being #921]. 8vo. Half-bound in pebbled calf with patterned paper sides, with five raised bands to the backstrips alongside gilt lettering, rules, bordering and a repeated rampant lion gilt-stamped decoration. With marbled endpapers, gilt top edges, and the title pages printed in black and red. With a different engraved tissue-protected frontispiece to each volume, and a further 30 engravings throughout the set (three per volume, alongside the frontispiece) contributed by George D. Sproul and occasional others. The corner tips rubbed. Some occasional chipping to the backstrip ends, resulting to a little loss there in three of the volumes, the loss measuring between perhaps a centimetre up to two inches. A lengthy slit to the lower outer gutter of one volume, and a smaller similar slit to a second volume. A good if slightly dusty set, really very crisp internally, with the lower edges of occasional gatherings uncut. The complete set comprises the following works: Mademoiselle De Maupin Parts I and II, The Grotesques, Travels in Spain, The Romance of a Mummy, Egypt, Travels in Italy, Fortinio, The Louvre, Constantinople, Spirite, The Vampire, Arria Marchella, Travels in Russia, Belgium & Holland, A Day in London, Avatar, Jettatura, The Water Pavilion, A History of Romanticism, The Progress of French Poetry, Captain Frarasse Parts I, II & III, My Private Menagerie, Paris Besieged, Militona, The Nightingales, The Marchioness's Lap-Dog, Jack and Jill, The Thousand and Second Night, Elias Mildmanstanding, Daniel Jovard, The Bowl of Punch, Art and Criticism, The Magic Hat, and Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems. 'Enamels and Cameos' ('Émaux et Camées' in the original French) was of particular significance to T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, helping the former out of his post-Prufrock, war-time malaise. "By the spring of 1917 [Eliot] was rather 'desperate', believing that he had dried up completely. But he discovered he could still compose in French [.] Edited and abetted by Pound, he began in 1917 a run of English poems in a 'French' style, drawing upon the formal example of Théophile Gautier's Émaux et Camées, a work from 1852 that would, for the next three years, become a model for both Eliot and Pound. "We studied Gautier's poems and then we thought, 'Have I anything to say in which this form will be useful? And we experimented. The form gave impetus to the content." Matthew Hollis, The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem. Seller Inventory # MA0057

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Complete Works of Théophile Gautier. ...
Publisher: Bigelow, Smith & Co., New York
Publication Date: 1910
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good
Edition: 1st Edition