Le Sire de Chamblay, counterfeited
Jun 20th, 2013 by houghtonmodern
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.
The French poet and novelist Edmond Haraucourt began his career with a volume of poems, La légende des sexes: poëmes hystériques, first published in 1882. The poems were controversial for their time, and Haraucourt published under the pseudonym Le Sire de Chamblay – though he gave the game partly away by parenthesizing (Edmond H…) below that name.
While the original edition, printed privately for the author, was limited to 212 copies, the copy featured here is even rarer: a counterfeited reprint of that edition, limited to 200 copies and probably printed closer to 1910. There are two key differences between the two: first, the original edition mentions the twelve additional copies on Japon paper in its colophon and bears the author’s initials, while the counterfeit edition does neither; second, the counterfeit edition includes a suite of colored engravings, believed to be by artist Martin van Maele, that also accompany some copies of a 1921 clandestine edition of the work.
As with much of the erotica in the Santo Domingo Collection, this copy was formerly owned by the Swiss collector Gérard Nordmann. The binding (below) reflects its former owner’s taste for extravagance, with a rose design that combines the prurient with the botanical.
Edmond Haraucourt. La légende des sexes. Imprimé à Bruxelles pour l’auteur: [s.n.], 1882. PQ2615.A7 L44 1882x.
Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.
Dear Houghtonmodern,
Interesting to see a book that may have once belonged to me.
I bought it in Paris around 1982. Unfortunately I had to sell it a few years later, around 1986. The dealer who bought it may have subsequently sold it to Nordmann. But I’m not sure, as there seems to exist at least one other copy in an identical binding
(which is probably by Marius Michel).
For the differences between the original and the counterfeit see Dutel 444 and 444bis. BTW, except for the differences that you mention there is another difference at the title page which makes it easy to identify the two editions: in the original ‘1882’ is in an oval cadre while in the counterfeit ‘1882’ is in a rectangular cadre, as here.
Perhaps interesting for you to know as well is that a Swiss collector is presently finishing a extensive monograph on the artist Martin van Maele. It will probably be published by the end of this year.
I had never heard of the ‘Santo Domingo Collection’ but it seems to be quite remarkable… If this copy indeed once belonged to me I’m glad that it is now housed in the prestigious environment of the Houghton Library. I only hope that it will not be disfigured by ugly library markings on the title page and the binding..
Dear Houghtonmodern,
Addendum:
My previous email was more or less meant as a private message to the cataloguer. I prefer that is is used as such: the cataloguer can incorporate the information that I have given in his/her notice, but after that I prefer that my previous message and this message is deleted.
In addition I can now confirm that at least two (and not one) similar copies exist in exactly the same binding as here, both with the 12 plates by Van Maele in a colored state (usually they are in b/w). These two copies are in the hands of two eminent European collectors of erotica with whom I have checked.
The plates by van Maele also exist in a larger format version, but then only with 10 plates in stead of 12. A description of this set (printed in 100 copies) can be found in the Nordmann catalogues.
In the introduction to the Santo Domingo Collection it is said that S.D. ‘bought the Nordmann collection’ . That it is not true. He was present at the two sales where he bought a number of items, including some very important ones like the Reage ms., the Pierre Louys material and the 1833 Gamiani, but probably not more than 50 or 60 titles, which means c. 5 % of the total. Or are there more titles that that still have to be processed at Houghton?
Except for these two auctions and the Hayoit sales Mr. Santo Domingo seems to have bought just a few other erotica elsewhere.
He did hardly visit the specialist shops and for various reasons was not much liked by the Parisian trade. His main interest seems to have been with the drugs, rock & roll and counterculture scene, while he ‘discovered’ the existence of choice erotica relatively late in his life. The Nordmann sales just presented themselves at the right place and moment, giving him the opportunity to satisfy a few more of his whims and caprices , probably in the same way as he had been able to do all his life.
But fata sua habent libelli. It is an incredible stroke of good luck for the Houghton Library that it can now profit from this remarkable collection!