VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM Auguste Axël.

Vicaire, VII, 1093 ; Clouzot, 277.

First edition of this posthumous collection, considered to be Villiers de L'Isle-Adam's literary testament.

When it was published by Quantin in January 1890, Villiers had been dead for several months. Before he died, he had time to correct about a third of the proofs, and to appoint Stéphane Mallarmé and Joris-Karl Huysmans as his executors.

This is undoubtedly Villiers de L'Isle-Adam's most melancholic work. It was written during the writer's Symbolist period.

Following in his footsteps, Claude Debussy began composing an opera based on the play in 1890. He no doubt wanted to realise the idea of total art advocated by the fin-de-siècle period. Unfortunately, he did not complete his proposal.

This relatively dark play develops the idea of a deceptive, disenchanted world that drives the protagonists to suicide. This vision resonates particularly with the decadent phase of the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, Joris-Karl Huysmans's À rebours and Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's Les Diaboliques also reflect this disillusionment.

A good copy.