RIMBAUD, Arthur.

£22,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Une saison en enfer. First edition. Rimbaud's hallucinogenic prose-poem was finished in a frenzy after the break-up of his relationship with Paul Verlaine, who shot Rimbaud in the wrist on 10 July 1873. The poem was printed in a small edition at Rimbaud's expense but was snubbed by the Parisian literary scene, which sided with the more established Verlaine.Apart from a bare handful of copies circulated by Rimbaud at the time, the entire edition was thought to have been destroyed by the author himself, along with his manuscripts, which he burned in a rage following the poor reception of the book. However, in 1901 the Belgian bibliophile Léon Losseau discovered the undistributed print run in the archives of the printer, rescuing from oblivion a book which, for over a quarter of a century, had been consigned to the catalogue of great lost books.

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