Paul Verlaine's amusing autographed letter signed to his publisher Léon Vanier

  
Drawing and autograph poem signed to his muse - Bookstore Le Pas Sage. Letter from Verlaine to Léon Vanier.

From the end of the book to avoid making fools of ourselves. AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM PAUL VERLAINE, signed "P." to the publisher Vanier, dated August 10, 1886. I read in Victor Hugo this verse: "This august and colossal bibliopole" [The Donkey, verse 289]. Bibliopole is taken here in the sense of a city of books.

So it would be prudent to remove the "Bibliopole Vanier" from the end of the book to avoid making fools of ourselves. "The printer Louise [Leclercq] took liberties with my corrected proofs. All the mistakes are meticulously maintained. I correct accordingly meticulously: it will be ready on Thursday as well as the first part of the Memoirs [of a widower]. I will also have some verses to give you, I think. Verlaine's publisher as well as other "Modern" poets like Corbière, Laforgue, Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Tailhade, Vanier indeed marked some of his works with the mention "by the Bibliopole Vanier" - the original. Appeared more simply at "Léon Vanier, publisher", in November 1886. Verlaine described, in a biographical note, the collaboration of the publisher with the writers of the time. Correspondence; published from the original manuscripts. He called out to the new poets a rallying cry that was heard, and soon saw them coming to him. He did not offer them golden bridges, golden bridges. Do not exist, they are fabulous and chimerical works of art, even the engineers of the astounding Ohnet only build them for their "creator" and are the most exclusive specialists - but decent, honorable conditions, and the affability of manners, perfect procedures, completed the work of frank honesty. From then on, the copies flowed to. 19 of the learned quai Saint-Michel. Charming editions followed one another.

It is fitting, opened the way, Huysmans and his astonishing Parisian Sketches, Verlaine and his Cursed Poets who set fire to quite a few damp fuses. (born in Metz, Moselle on March 30, 1844 and died in Paris on January 8, 1896).