Description

ORIGINAL EDITION of Valéry's poetic masterpiece.
Edition of 556 numbered copies - 7 copies on Chine and 49 copies on arches and 500 copies on Mittineague-mil.
AUTHOR'S COPY on Mittineague-mil, justified in red ink.

Precious autograph signed letter :

"to my dear Paul Fort
Paul Valéry

The two Pauls probably met in the early 1890s through Pierre Louÿs. Founder and director of the review Verses and proseIn 1906, ten years after its confidential publication in the Centaurthe rare offprint of the  Mr Teste's evening;  the two friends later co-edited the magazine.

Valéry admired Fort's prose, particularly his ballads: " The pleasure of this idea, which came to her so long ago, of putting her verses into prose form, is that it adds to the pleasure of reading delicious or tender verses, the initial pleasure of coming up against their music and beginning to sing without having expected it.." (Livre des visions - 1941). Paul Fort, who, after Verlaine and Mallarmé, had been awarded the title of Prince of Poets in 1912, wrote a laudatory ballad about Valery as early as 1897 "Prince of Letters" :

"Prince of letters, the wisest,
Let it rhyme backwards
Youth at a young age,
O Valéry, always smile."