Pierre Louÿs - Pervigilium mortis [E.O. 1/1000] - 1947

Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925), Pervigilium mortis, Paris, Albin Michel, 1947. One of 950 copies printed on white vellum paper from the Papeteries de Lana, this is no. 898.

A softcover octavo volume, 42 leaves, in faux folios under a folded wrapper printed in red and black, unpaginated, double cardboard slipcase (publisher’s chemise and case), complete with the three loose facsimile manuscript leaves. Preface by Yves-Gérard Le Dantec. Original edition limited to one thousand copies. Ex-libris note. Superb copy in near-new condition (slipcase and interior), not fully trimmed!

First separate edition of this very beautiful poetic text, first published in the 1945 anthology, also issued by Yves-Gérard Le Dantec (1898-1958). Luxury edition in an oblong format.

Pervigilium Mortis is Pierre Louÿs's masterpiece. It is also one of the most beautiful poems in the French language. Edition prepared by Yves-Gérard Le Dantec, who recounts the genesis of this text in a long introduction. In 1916, Louÿs retrieved from his papers the verses of the Pervigilium written in 1899. The poem was inspired by the 'mysterious nuptials' with Marie Régnier in 1897. For years he had been haunted by this line: "Open to me your eyes, so sad and so tender" without being able to recall the author. While flipping through unpublished verses from his youth he discovered that these lines were his. He then takes up the poem again, corrects it and completes it. Le Dantec sees in this magnificent human and poetic testament “a dialogue between lovers, but lovers who are both poets and whose words, thoughts, intertwined with their mutual passion, have but one conjugated aim: to create a new and lasting beauty, where flesh and life remain, in the centuries of centuries, inseparably mingled.”

Superb!