BAUDELAIRE Charles La Revue fantaisiste.

Rodolphe Bresdin. Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre gravé. Volume II, pp. 45-83. Dirck Van Gelder, Chêne, 1976 ; François Fossier, Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885), un graveur solitaire. Les dossiers du musée d’Orsay, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1990 ; E. Graham, Passages d’encre, Échanges littéraires dans la bibliothèque Jean Bonna, Paris, 2008.

First edition of the legendary French literary avant-garde magazine illustrated with etchings by Bresdin.

La Revue fantaisiste was created by Catulle Mendès and Leconte de Lisle to bring together the leading figures of the Parnassian movement, followers of Théophile Gautier’s “art for art’s sake.” The back covers mention the names of Baudelaire, Charles Asselineau, Hippolyte Babou, Banville, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Philoxène Boyer, Champfleury, Théophile Gautier, the Goncourt brothers, and others.

In this magazine, which lasted less than a year, Baudelaire published nine of his best-known prose poems, including Le Crépuscule du soir, L’Horloge, La Chevelure, and L’Invitation au Voyage. He also published numerous studies on his contemporaries, including Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and Edgar Poe, revealing their unjustly overlooked genius (Verlaine would do the same with Les Poètes maudits, 1884). These studies stand out as true poetic manifestos: true poets are not necessarily those who are acclaimed (see, conversely, Baudelaire’s scathing study of Victor Hugo in the same journal), but others, left in the shadows of a century and a society that did not suit them. La Revue fantaisiste created a dividing line between two kinds of poets. It so happened that the vast majority of those whose texts it published were also published by Poulet-Malassis, the avant-garde publisher.

Twenty-five years later, another magazine, La Vogue, led by a new generation, would bring this modernity, initiated and championed by La Revue fantaisiste, to a close. The poetic modernity of late 19th-century France fits between these two magazines. Each revolved around a central figure: Baudelaire on one side, Rimbaud (who described Baudelaire as a “true god”) on the other. Between the two appeared Alphonse Lemerre’s first Parnasse contemporain (1866), publishing Baudelaire’s last verses and the first of Verlaine and Mallarmé.

The illustrations consist of 14 original etchings by Rodolphe Bresdin, reserved exclusively for subscription copies. The back cover of each issue of the magazine states that “each delivery contains a magnificent etching by Rodolphe Bresdin.” Baudelaire replied to Léon Cladel, who asked him for the name of this curious character: “He does not yet have one, and yet he has engraved two works, Le Bon Samaritain and La Comédie de la Mort, which, if he were resurrected, Holbein would not disown. Lacking talent, he has genius” (Léon Cladel, Raca, 1888, p. 277). It was Baudelaire who obtained this contract for the engraver with Théophile Gautier. Their collaboration was to be interrupted a month before the magazine ceased publication. In all, fourteen original etchings were published in the Revue fantaisiste.

Complete copies of all of Bresdin’s engravings, preserved with the covers of all the installments and bound in contemporary bindings, are extremely rare.

Provenance : Paul Muret (book plate).