ELIOT, Thomas Stearns, his copy.] BAUDELAIRE, Charles (1821-1867). Les Fleurs du mal. [Oeuvres completes, édition definitive.] Paris: Calmann-Levy, n.d. [ca 1906].
ELIOT, Thomas Stearns, his copy.] BAUDELAIRE, Charles (1821-1867). Les Fleurs du mal. [Oeuvres completes, édition definitive.] Paris: Calmann-Levy, n.d. [ca 1906]. An outstanding association copy from the library of T.S. Eliot: Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal, inscribed “Thomas Stearns Eliot / May 1908” on the half-title, with annotations referring to “Corbière” in Eliot’s mature hand (probably late 1920s), a Baudelaire quote regarding Edgar Allen Poe and a reference to Mallarmé in Vivienne Eliot's hand. T.S. Eliot told Edward Green that he first read Baudelaire in 1907 or 1908, “with great impact.” 8vo (180 x 115 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece (spotting to frontispiece). Contemporary red half morocco and marbled boards, spine gilt lettered, top edge gilt (some rubbing to spine ends, joints and edges); dust jacket (chipping and tear to spine panel). Provenance : Thomas Stearns Eliot (ownership inscription dated May 1908 in Eliot’s early hand and bookplate, with the family motto “Tace et fac”). Christie’s is grateful to Jim McCue for his assistance in the preparation of this catalogue description. “I think that from Baudelaire I learned first a precedent for the poetical possibilities never developed by any poet writing in my own language…” (T.S. Eliot in his lecture “What Dante means to me” 4 July 1950.) In addition to the ownership inscription the work contains the following notes: “Half of Corbière anticipated” by T.S. Eliot ( p. 255) “- ce que fut et ce que sera toujours le vraie [sic] poëte,-- une verité habillée d'une manière bizarre (Baudelaire sur Poe)” by Vivienne Eliot (p. 5, preface Theophile Gautier). “Mallarmé” by Vivienne Eliot (p. 411 and CXL La Beatrice underlining; CXLIII Le Reniement de saint Pierre underlining). tiny “x” in an unidentified hand (pp.9, 10, 15). Eliot studied at Harvard when he inscribed his copy of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal . At that time he had published a few poems in Smith Academy Record and the Harvard Advocate . His notes in the book are in two distinctly different hands: the ownership inscription of the young student and the more mature hand in the reference to Corbière. In The Waste Land (1922) Eliot quoted the last line of Baudelaire’s “Préface” in the last line of part I “hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!” Eliot published his essay Baudelaire in 1930. In addition he made numerous references concerning the impact Baudelaire had on his writing throughout his life including: “I look back to the dead year 1908; and I observe with satisfaction that it is now taken for granted that the current of French poetry which sprang from Baudelaire is one which has, in these twenty-one years, affected all English poetry that matters.” ( Baudelaire and the Symbolists in the January 1930 issue of Criterion magazine). He told Edward J.H. Greene that he first read Baudelaire in 1907 or 1908, “with great impact” (Greene 18). “I had discovered the French poets in question in 1909 when I was an undergraduate. Baudelaire was not a symboliste, but the fore-runner of the symbolistes. My Prufrock was written in 1911 and there was no ‘stream of new American poetry’ at the time when it was written.” ( Northrop Frye, corrigenda , 1963). In 1933 he writes, “when I first came across these French poets, some twenty-three years ago, it was a personal enlightenment such as I can hardly communicate. I felt for the first time in contact with a tradition, for the first time, that I had, so to speak, some backing by the dead, and at the same time that I had something to say that might be new and relevant. I doubt whether, without the men I have mentioned— Baudelaire, Corbière, Verlaine, Laforgue, Mallarmé, Rimbaud; I should have been able to write poetry at all.” (Eliot, The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry 287. Turnbull Lecture III, third and final lecture 1933). (See for all quotes: Eliot, T.S. The Poems. Volume I, Collected and Uncollected Poems, edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim M
ELIOT, Thomas Stearns, his copy.] BAUDELAIRE, Charles (1821-1867). Les Fleurs du mal. [Oeuvres completes, édition definitive.] Paris: Calmann-Levy, n.d. [ca 1906].
ELIOT, Thomas Stearns, his copy.] BAUDELAIRE, Charles (1821-1867). Les Fleurs du mal. [Oeuvres completes, édition definitive.] Paris: Calmann-Levy, n.d. [ca 1906]. An outstanding association copy from the library of T.S. Eliot: Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal, inscribed “Thomas Stearns Eliot / May 1908” on the half-title, with annotations referring to “Corbière” in Eliot’s mature hand (probably late 1920s), a Baudelaire quote regarding Edgar Allen Poe and a reference to Mallarmé in Vivienne Eliot's hand. T.S. Eliot told Edward Green that he first read Baudelaire in 1907 or 1908, “with great impact.” 8vo (180 x 115 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece (spotting to frontispiece). Contemporary red half morocco and marbled boards, spine gilt lettered, top edge gilt (some rubbing to spine ends, joints and edges); dust jacket (chipping and tear to spine panel). Provenance : Thomas Stearns Eliot (ownership inscription dated May 1908 in Eliot’s early hand and bookplate, with the family motto “Tace et fac”). Christie’s is grateful to Jim McCue for his assistance in the preparation of this catalogue description. “I think that from Baudelaire I learned first a precedent for the poetical possibilities never developed by any poet writing in my own language…” (T.S. Eliot in his lecture “What Dante means to me” 4 July 1950.) In addition to the ownership inscription the work contains the following notes: “Half of Corbière anticipated” by T.S. Eliot ( p. 255) “- ce que fut et ce que sera toujours le vraie [sic] poëte,-- une verité habillée d'une manière bizarre (Baudelaire sur Poe)” by Vivienne Eliot (p. 5, preface Theophile Gautier). “Mallarmé” by Vivienne Eliot (p. 411 and CXL La Beatrice underlining; CXLIII Le Reniement de saint Pierre underlining). tiny “x” in an unidentified hand (pp.9, 10, 15). Eliot studied at Harvard when he inscribed his copy of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal . At that time he had published a few poems in Smith Academy Record and the Harvard Advocate . His notes in the book are in two distinctly different hands: the ownership inscription of the young student and the more mature hand in the reference to Corbière. In The Waste Land (1922) Eliot quoted the last line of Baudelaire’s “Préface” in the last line of part I “hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!” Eliot published his essay Baudelaire in 1930. In addition he made numerous references concerning the impact Baudelaire had on his writing throughout his life including: “I look back to the dead year 1908; and I observe with satisfaction that it is now taken for granted that the current of French poetry which sprang from Baudelaire is one which has, in these twenty-one years, affected all English poetry that matters.” ( Baudelaire and the Symbolists in the January 1930 issue of Criterion magazine). He told Edward J.H. Greene that he first read Baudelaire in 1907 or 1908, “with great impact” (Greene 18). “I had discovered the French poets in question in 1909 when I was an undergraduate. Baudelaire was not a symboliste, but the fore-runner of the symbolistes. My Prufrock was written in 1911 and there was no ‘stream of new American poetry’ at the time when it was written.” ( Northrop Frye, corrigenda , 1963). In 1933 he writes, “when I first came across these French poets, some twenty-three years ago, it was a personal enlightenment such as I can hardly communicate. I felt for the first time in contact with a tradition, for the first time, that I had, so to speak, some backing by the dead, and at the same time that I had something to say that might be new and relevant. I doubt whether, without the men I have mentioned— Baudelaire, Corbière, Verlaine, Laforgue, Mallarmé, Rimbaud; I should have been able to write poetry at all.” (Eliot, The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry 287. Turnbull Lecture III, third and final lecture 1933). (See for all quotes: Eliot, T.S. The Poems. Volume I, Collected and Uncollected Poems, edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim M
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