François Coppée. [Texte de Paul Verlaine. Dessin d'Émile Cohl, pseud.]

Paris: Librairie Vanier, 1885   ¶ FIRST EDITION, and in fact the only separate edition, of Verlaine's sketch of François Coppée; enlivened by a striking caricature of the poet holding a red rose and toting a wagonload of hearts across the Place de l'Odéon--where his comedy Le passant had given Sarah Bernhardt her first triumph.   ¶ Coppée was a leading poet and dramatist of the 1870s and '80s, and the progenitor of Les Vilains Bonshommes ("The Nasty Boys")--a group of younger Parnassians whose monthly dinners were celebrated, famously, by Fantin-Latour in his large canvas Coin de table, now in the Musée d'Orsay. (It was at one such dinner, in 1871, that Rimbaud made his Paris debut. The Nasty Boys were not amused.) Coppée is now remembered chiefly for his role in excluding Mallarmé and Verlaine and Charles Cros from the third volume of Le Parnasse contemporain 1876. (Series: Les hommes d'aujourd'hui, no. 243.)   ||| Collation: 284 x 200 mm: Two leaves, paginated [1-4] (ie, not paginated).  Illustration: Wood-engraved caricature 198 x 166 mm after "Émile Cohl" (ie, Émile Courtet, 1857-1938), signed in the block lower left, printed in black and HAND-COLORED au pochoir, AS ISSUED.  Binding: (A bifolium loose as issued, never bound.)  Condition: Corners slightly chipped, withal A FINE COPY of a scarce and fragile pamphlet.  References: Vicaire vii 1002; Carteret ii 425; Montel 127; Van Bever 32, 116; Verlaine/Borel (1992-93) ii 1344-46, 1503; Fischer/Galantaris 63n. ||| For further details please contact Jay Dillon  Rare Books + Manuscripts, as below. .