‘LORRAIN, Jean’, pseud. [i.e. Paul DUVAL]. Contes pour lire à la Chandelle.

Presented by Proust's Duellist

‘LORRAIN, Jean’, pseud. [i.e. Paul DUVAL]. Contes pour lire à la Chandelle. Paris: [C. Renaudie for] Mercure de France. [30 April] 1897.

12mo. Publisher's drab printed wrappers, Mercure de France device to upper wrapper and spine, uncut and partly unopened; pp. [175], [4], [1 (blank)]; slight creasing to spine, small chip to upper joint, spine ends lightly bumped; uniform light toning, slight dampstaining to upper corner; a very good copy; presentation inscription to front free endpaper 'à René Maizeroy, son ami Jean Lorrain' (see below).

Uncommon first edition of these short stories 'to be read by candlelight' by the openly gay Symbolist poet and novelist Jean Lorrain, notorious for duelling Proust (after Lorrain had subtly outed him in print) only two months before the publication of the present work.

Lorrain (born Paul Duval, 1855–1906) came to Paris in 1881, where he became colloquially known as ‘Sodom’s ambassador to Paris’. A friend of Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, and Samuel Pozzi, he was known for his long-standing addiction to ether (it is said that his grave reeked of it decades after his death), his pugnacity, and his ‘great fondness for hoodlums, fairground wrestlers, butcher-boys and assorted pimps’, as he wrote to a friend in an 1890 letter (trans. Sibalis, GLBTQ Archive, online).

Lorrain narrowly avoided a duel with his childhood friend Maupassant, offended at recognising himself in one of Lorrain’s fictional characters, in 1886, and two years later closely escaped coming to blows with Verlaine after Lorrain had mistakenly reported that he had been committed to an asylum. Perhaps his most notorious conflict is his duel with Proust, who challenged Lorrain after reading a review of his first book, Les Plaisirs et le jours, in which Lorrain hinted at the sexual nature of Proust’s relationship with Lucien Daudet (son of the novelist Alphonse Daudet). Lorrain, with the bibliophile Octave Uzanne as his second, intentionally missed his shot, as did Proust.

Provenance: This copy of Contes pour lire à la Chandelle was presented by Lorrain to another former duelling partner, the journalist René Maizeroy (the pseudonym of Baron René-Jean Toussaint), who challenged Lorrain on 18 April 1887 following a press controversy. ‘On the first and second attempts, Maizeroy was struck twice in the arm with a sword, and witnesses broke up the fight’ (Le Matin, 19 April 1887, trans.); the two remained fast friends following the altercation.

OCLC and Library Hub find six copies outside continental Europe, of which four in the US (Illinois, Oberlin, UNC Chapel Hill, Stony Brook), one in the UK (Glasgow), and one in Australia (ANU).

Not in Vicaire (see vol. V, col. 399).

SKU: 2121536