BLOY (Léon). The Resurrection of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. Paris:... Lot 60

BLOY (Léon). The Resurrection of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. Paris: Librairie E. Lecampion, A. Blaizot, 1906. - Booklet in-8, 243 x 159: frontispiece, (4 ff.), 32 pp. printed cover. Percaline brique à la Bradel, smooth spine, untrimmed, cover preserved (period binding). First edition of this pamphlet, intended to solicit contributions for the erection of a monument by sculptor Frédéric Brou to the memory of Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. "La Résurrection is a glowing, eulogistic article about Villiers, but at the same time, Bloy persists in recording everything he hated about Villiers' ideas (fifteen years after his death!). In our opinion, the most heartfelt words in the text are those he dedicates to Villiers' feminine ideal. Both men had had an affair with a common woman and a very similar way of life: they were able to recreate the illusion of a being gifted with extraordinary intelligence and unheard-of beauty (a woman who would be God, or the Holy Spirit for Bloy). The passages Bloy quotes from Villiers' works clearly show that the creator of La Femme pauvre understood Villiers' dreams and obsessions" (Marta Giné Janer, Bloy et Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, in: Léon Bloy au tournant du siècle, 1992, p. 40). The edition is illustrated on the frontispiece with a heliogravure of the model of the monument sculpted by Frédéric Brou (1862-1926) (a nude beauty tearing off the planks of Villiers' coffin). A precious copy, one of the very few printed on laid paper, whose edition is not mentioned in the justification. This is the copy offered to critic and writer René Martineau (1866-1948), bearing this autograph dispatch from Bloy, signed by the author and Frédéric Brou: to René Martineau // l'Initiateur // Léon Bloy // Frédéric Brou Martineau was a close friend of Léon Bloy. In 1901, he published a book entitled Un vivant et deux morts devoted to Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Ernest Hello and Léon Bloy. According to Natacha Galpénine: "It was thanks to this publication, which included a portrait of Villiers on his deathbed, that Léon Bloy was able to see the face of his friend from which Huysmans had dismissed him in August 1889, shortly before his meeting with Jeanne" (Natacha Galpénine, Jeanne et Léon Bloy. Une écriture à quatre mains, 2017). Enriched with two corrections (pp. 20 and 24) and an addition (title) by the author, as well as two original vintage silver photographs, one 212 x 132 mm, of the monument at an angle different from that shown in the frontispiece photo, and the other a very fine portrait of the sculptor (158 x 113 mm). Spine faded and covers discolored in places. Provenance: René Martineau, with bookplate. - Bibliothèque J.C.D., Norman amateur, with bookplate (Artcurial sale, May 23, 2005, no. 179).