Les Fleurs du Mal

Paris: Les Cent Bibliophiles, 1899.
First Illustrated Edition.

27.5cm x 20cm. xii, 424 [=426], xxx pages, frontispiece, 26 plates, colour etchings in the text. Fine full brown leather signed binding by Henri Noulhac with the original illustrated wrappers bound in. Text is in French.

One of 115 numbered copies of the first, and widely considered the best, illustrated edition of The Flowers of Evil, being the chef d’oeuvre of Belgian artist Armand Rassenfosse, with nearly every page of the text illustrated with Symbolist colour etchings and nude women. This copy from the collection of actor and bibliophile Barry Humphries, with his bookplate; bound in a fine binding signed Noulhac 1918, with multi-rule borders and silk doublures framed with inlaid leather strips and flowers at the corners. Illustrated with a portrait frontispiece, throughout with hundreds of colour illustrations and tailpieces, as well as 6 plates and a page of text with tailpiece outside of the text. Bound at the rear is a Juin 1897 Specimen being the leaf of XX La Geante with an alternative tailpiece illustration and the chapter plate for Les Fleurs du Mal, an etched menu cover for a Les Cent Bibliophiles Dinner for Fleurs du Mal, 6 Mai 1901 by Rassenfosse, as well as 17 additional etchings by Evert van Muyden and other artists.

Very minor shelf wear to board edges. Occasional tanned pages (as often). Near Fine Condition.

AU$9,000.00

1 in stock