Description

Rare FIRST EDITION of this collection of 71 Chinese-inspired poems.

SIGNED AUTOGRAPH CONSIGNMENT from the author (who became Judith Mendès after her marriage to Catulle Mendès) to the writer Armand Silvestre :

to Mr Armand Silvestre
as a token of my deep admiration
Judith Mendès

Infatuated with Judith Gautier, for whom he wrote several fiery sonnets, Armand Silvestre wrote the prologue to his Japanese play  The Merchant of Smiles.

The eldest daughter of Théophile Gautier, a Sinophile like herself, Judith Gautier began learning Mandarin in 1863 with Din Dunling (or Tin-Tun-Ling), a political refugee. Only a few months later, she had her work published in the magazine The Artist 17 "Variations on Chinese themes"All but one will be included for The Book of Jadewhere they will be described as "composed".according to"a Chinese poet.
A mixture of attempted translations by a neophyte (forThe mysterious flute"For example, Judith Gautier seems to have deciphered 5 of the 28 characters of the original poem), variations on the work of Léon d'Hervey de Saint Denys (compiler, commentator and translator of the Poetry from the Thang period) and pure invention, The Book of Jade Judith Gautier was to become the first woman to join the Académie Goncourt some 40 years later. As for the imposture, whether intentional or not, no one seemed to mind: the poet was praised for her inventiveness rather than the rigour of the "translator".

Translated into Italian, Portuguese and then English (in part), the work was not republished until 1902, with the addition of 39 poems. This time it was a triumphant success. But this new edition, unlike the original, presents Judith Gautier's work as a work of pure translation. The author does not fail to perpetuate this myth in her memoirs:

Almost every day, accompanied by Ting, who acted as my stepmother, I went to the manuscript room [from the Richelieu library] and we would rummage through the poetry collections, looking for poems to our taste, copying them so that we could take them home and study them at our leisure. [...] Later, we were allowed to take the books we needed from the library.

In this way, while helping to interest the public in Chinese poetry, The Book of Jade sows confusion. The poem "Le pavillon de porcelaine", for example, was entirely imagined by Judith Gautier, and will reappear in several collections attributed to Li Bai.

In 1911, Lucien Pissarro published L'Album of poems from the "Book of Jadeillustrated with eight woodcuts.

A fine copy with full margins, elegantly bound in red silk.

7 copies in France, all at the BnF (Tolbiac and Arsenal sites); only 1 copy has a mailing.

• DelobelJuliette. "Judith Gautier, intuitive scholar, BNF Reviewvol. 60, no. 1, 2020, pp. 160-169.
• StocèsFerdinand. "Sur les sources du Livre de Jadede Judith Gautier (1845-1917). (Remarks on the authenticity of the poems)", Comparative literature reviewvol. n^o 319, no. 3, 2006, pp. 335-350.