Une Saison en enfer

BOUND BY JEAN DE GONET

FIRST EDITION

12mo (166 x 112 mm)
LIMITATION estimated at 400 copies

BINDING SIGNED BY JEAN DE GONET, dated 1988 : “supple sides in bronze shagreen, decorated headpiece and tailpiece with small falsely topstitched little pieces of polished brown calfskin with agate and foredge with ebony. At the joints, ebony border with an offset rise of rushes of the same wood. Stitching on two raised bands encased in black thread. Brown calfskin spine polished with agate. Doublures in light brown nubuck, anthracite endpapers” (F. Le Bars), preserved wrappers. Jacket, slipcase

We know the story of Une Saison en enfer. The end of the text is followed by the dates “April - August 1873” and it was probably in the following August or September that Rimbaud delivered or sent his manuscript – now lost – to a printer in Brussels. Towards the end of October, he returned to Brussels to take possession of the printed booklets. Undoubtedly unable to pay the balance of the invoice, he could only dispose of a few copies and had to leave the remaining stock (of a total print run of 500 copies) in the printer's workshop where he was only discovered in 1901.

After Rimbaud disappeared in Africa, a group of passionate admirers began to collect his scattered texts and undertook the major publications of his work. We owe to their constant efforts the passage of Rimbaud's work to posterity. Following the disappearance of a large part of the edition of Une Saison en enfer, the text was very difficult to find.

BIBLIOGRAPHY : M. Clouzot, Guide du bibliophile français, p. 237 -- Fabienne Le Bars, Jean de Gonet relieur, Paris, 2013, n° 0532