Description

FIRST EDITION of Élisa Mercoeur's only collection, with a frontispiece portrait of the author by Ulnier
There is also a second edition dated 1829 and a posthumous edition in his complete works.

By the age of 16, this prodigious poetess was already known as the "armorican muse". Admired by Musset, Hugo, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, the Duchesse de Berry, Chateaubriand and Lamartine (the latter writing " This little girl will overtake us all for as long as we are ... "However, Élisa Mercoeur never ceased to deplore the fact that her work had been forgotten. When Baron Taylor rejected Boabdilthe tragedy she had performed at the Comédie Française, the poet attempted suicide. She died four years later of lung failure, accusing Taylor of being the cause of her illness: "This is the cause of my death, more than misery"..

Copy in contemporary hardback.

Caillaud Paul. "The troubled life of Élisa Mercœur". Annals of Brittany. Volume 59, number 1, 1952. pp. 28-38.
Clouzot, Guide to 19th century French bibliophilespage 114.