Octavo, 224pp. First edition of this anthology of poetry. A very good copy in publisher's printed wrappers, one of 940 on alfa. Inscribed by Valery on page 190 :a Jean Pozzi. Paul Valery. Jean Pozzi was the brother of Catherine, and both were the children of prominent surgeon Samuel-Jean Pozzi, whose portrait entitled Dr. Samuel Jean Pozzi at Home, was masterfully executed by John Singer Sargent in 1881 (Armand Hammer Collection). Catherine married Édouard Bourdet, a minor, yet succesful writer at the time, in 1907. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1910, at age 28, decided to enroll in the university, earning her degree eight years later. She divorced her husband in 1920, and promptly began an affair with Valery which lasted some eight years. The end of the affair brought a rapid decline for Elizabeth, and she slipped into a heroin and laudanum addiction that finally ended her life in 1934. She left behind a number of publications, including the autobiographical novel Agnès. That Valery would inscribe a book to her brother around the time of his break up with Catherine is somehow puzzling. Surely, by the middle of the year, when the book was published, the affair was most likely in its last throbs. An interesting object linking the author with a personage close to one of the most torrid chapters of his later life.
USD 650.00
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