Henri de Régnier - Contes à soi-même - EO - 1894

RÉGNIER (Henri de). Contes à soi-même. Paris, Librairie de l'Art indépendant, 1894.

12mo, 194 pp., 17.3 cm x 12.5 cm. Half chocolate morocco, gilt fillet on the marbled-paper boards, spine with five raised bands, gilt title, date at foot, gilt top edge, untrimmed, original wrappers preserved, marbled-paper endpapers.

First edition. Henri de Régnier (1864–1936), one of the great poets of Symbolism, son-in-law of José-Maria de Heredia and future member of the Académie française, brings together here prose tales of dreamy preciosity, peopled with castles, gardens, and enchanted princesses; they would be republished in La Canne de jaspe in 1897.

The book was issued by Edmond Bailly's Librairie de l'Art indépendant, on the rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, a major center of fin-de-siècle Symbolism and esotericism, where Mallarmé, Debussy, and Odilon Redon crossed paths. The title page bears, and the celebrated publisher's device is repeated on a full page: a winged mermaid designed by Félicien Rops, with the motto “This fish is not for everyone.”

Condition: a handsome copy, with fresh, well-executed binding. Paper uniformly browned, with a few foxing spots, more pronounced on the wrappers.