499 - LAFORGUE (Jules). Legendary Morals. Paris, Librairie de la revue indépendante, 1887. In-12, 227 pp., [3] ff., ivory Bradel binding, gilt title on spine, date at the tail (contemporary binding). Binding is faded, spine worn and scuffed. Bookplate of Jean Baptiste Peÿer Imhoff, Lord of Fontenelle. Modern bookplate marked “JM.”

LAFORGUE (Jules). Legendary Morals. Paris, Librairie de la revue indépendante, 1887. In-12, 227 pp., [3] ff., ivory Bradel binding, gilt title on spine, date at the tail (contemporary binding). Binding is faded, spine worn and scuffed. Bookplate of Jean Baptiste Peÿer Imhoff, Lord of Fontenelle. Modern bookplate marked “JM.” Includes the etched frontispiece portrait by Émile Laforgue, the poet’s brother. Posthumous first edition, published by Édouard Dujardin a few months after the death of Jules Laforgue on August 20, 1887, at the age of only 27. Printed in a run of 420 numbered copies; no. 339 of 400 on machine-made English vellum. A few small foxing spots. This collection of six short stories, among the major works of Symbolist prose, reimagines great mythological and literary figures: Hamlet, Salome, Lohengrin, Pan, and Perseus. The texts, previously published in magazines, were extensively revised by the author before his death.