VERLAINE (Paul). - Lot 303

VERLAINE (Paul). Born in Metz. 1844–1896. French writer and poet. Autograph letter signed “P. Verlaine” to “Dear Sir.” Vouziers (Ardennes), undated [the 24th, circa 1884]. 1 page, in-8. ...I haven’t been able to read your other two novels. If only you knew what maddening worries I have! But starting tonight, I’ll make my way through your exquisite books, which I judge to be such after having read *Songes*...Having settled with his mother at the Malval farm in the Ardennes, Verlaine gave himself over to drunkenness. Elisa Verlaine, anxious to protect her son, gifted him the farm, attaching a clause making it exempt from seizure. Verlaine did not spare her his bouts of brutality, which led him straight to the court in Vouziers (in February 1885). On March 8, 1885, Verlaine put a definitive end to this Ardennes interlude and sold the house before returning to Paris.*Songes* is a novel by Francis Poictevin (1854–1904), dedicated to Maupassant and published by Kistemaeckers in Brussels in 1884. F. Poictevin had previously published *La Robe du moine* (1882) and *Ludine* (1883). A dandy, an aesthete, and a disciple of Edmond de Goncourt, Poictevin gradually descended into madness. Although he had fallen into obscurity, he later earned the admiration of Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, and André Breton. Verlaine devoted a monograph to him in the journal *Les Hommes d’aujourd’hui*, no. 424, 1894.