Alfred de Vigny / Georges Scott - Stello [1/130 sur Chine] - 1901

Rare and luxurious illustrated edition of Alfred de Vigny's novel, first published in 1832, adorned with 65 engravings by Georges Scott, wood-engraved by Eugène Dété, and featuring 41 original initials.

Limited to only 500 copies. This one, one of the rare 130 copies from China (after 20 from Japan), numbered 107 and signed by the publisher on the certificate.

Introduction by Jules Case

Leaves, in a half olive green percaline slipcase with flaps, with a gold title inscribed on the front cover and the back. Very fine copy. Faded edges on the case with a few discreet marks on the covers. Interior impeccable. Very carefully crafted and uncommon edition.

Part novel, part essay, part philosophical dialogue, an intimate work and 'a kind of epic poem about disillusionment' according to Vigny, Stello (1832) is a composite and unclassifiable work, featuring Dr. Noir and Stello, his patient, inclined to spleen and neurasthenia. While the former, 'doctor of souls,' embodies the calculating coldness of reason and attachment to reality, the latter, a figure of the romantic poet, symbolizes the prophetic power of poetry animated by the impulses of the heart and imagination. Foreshadowing Baudelaire's vision of the poet's condition, this work was praised in the 20th century by the surrealist André Breton, who wrote: 'From reading Stello in my youth, the affective memory that alone survives persists in making me feel, specifically, a tragic and distant sentiment of life, whose nobility I find hard to contest.'

Alfred de Vigny / Georges Scott
Stello.
Paris, Artistic Society of the Illustrated Book, 1901
In-4 (234mm x 160mm) with 330 pages