MIRBEAU (Octave) - Lot 267

MIRBEAU (Octave) The Twenty-First Days of a Neurasthenic. Vingt-neuvième mille. Paris, Fasquelle, 1901 "Bibliothèque Charpentier". In-12. One of 30 numbered copies on Hollande, the only large paper. With a letter from Octave Mirbeau to novelist and playwright Paul Hervieu, academician, friend and confidant of the author. ½ red morocco with corners signed CANAPE, gilt title on spine, publisher's cover preserved, gilt head. Untrimmed copy. Also included: VIOLLET Le DUC (Eugène Emmanuel): Six mois de la vie d'un jeune homme (1797). Paris, Jannet, 1853. Red percaline publisher's boards, gilt title and sphere (Jannet). A good copy. Provenance: Ex-libris G. de Lailhacar. There are at least 2 different bindings for this work: one in the name of Pagnerre and the other in the name of Daffis. There is certainly a third in the name of Jannet. (as here) "The scene of this autobiographical novel is set in the vicinity of Lourdes". These memories are those of the great architect's father, who also came to the Pyrenees. The original was published by Charpentier et Fasquelle in 1902. The author takes his bitterness to the Pyrenees and sets the tone: "So, I travel, which bores me prodigiously, and I travel in the Pyrenees, which turns the general boredom I have with traveling into a particular torture. What I reproach the Pyrenees for most is being mountains... And yet, mountains, whose enormous, fierce poetry I feel as well as anyone, symbolize for me everything the universe can contain: incurable sadness, black despondency, an unbreathable, deadly atmosphere... I admire their grandiose forms, and their changing light... But it's the soul of it that appalls me... It seems to me that the landscapes of death must be mountains and mountains, like the ones I'm looking at as I write. Perhaps that's why so many people love them. It's clear from these few lines that we're in the presence of top-quality literature.