RAMEAU, Jean (pseudonym for: Laurent LABAIGT); Ary GAMBARD (illustrator). Poèmes Fantasques.

In a Macabre Binding

RAMEAU, Jean (pseudonym for: Laurent LABAIGT); Ary GAMBARD (illustrator). Poèmes Fantasques. [Evreux: Charles Hérissey for] Paris: Ed. Monnier & Cie. 1883.

Contemporary half morocco with marbled sides, ruled in black, raised bands, spine lettered directly in black and with skull-and-crossbones tools in black, top-edge gilt, the others uncut, marbled endpapers, tricolour silk place-marker; pp. [6], 114, [2]; illustrated title lettered in red and black; muted duotone illustrations to start of each poem and in the text; light dampstaining to spine, corners lightly rubbed; lightly toned throughout, variable spotting (heavier to first few ff.); contemporary bookplate showing two figures in profile to front pastedown; a very good copy; signed by the publisher to limitation leaf.

First edition, signed by the publisher, no. 114 of 400 copies on Holland paper from a total limitation of 500 copies, of these fourteen macabre poems, our copy in a suitably spooky binding.

Labaigt (1858–1942) assumed the pseudonym of Jean Rameau shortly before moving from Gascony to Paris, where he wrote over fifty novels and seven collections of poetry; this is apparently his first collection of verse, with numerous eerie illustrations: a bookish mouse reads whilst trapped inside a spiderweb, a gnarled tree consumes one of its own limbs, and a crowd forms as a silhouetted figure is taken to the guillotine.

Vicaire II, p. 953.

SKU: 2125783