Brussels: Henry Kistemaeckers, 1884. Quarter-bound, 142 pp. 18 x 12 cm. Illustrated with two sketches by Jan van Beers. First edition. First printing.
Simple one-quarter binding, with spine covered in wine-red cloth and boards in a papier coulé paper. Gilt lettering on spine. Original cover still behind the end papers. A very good copy, showing edge wear at the paper side of the top and bottom edges. Upper part of back board slightly sunned.
First edition of Rodenbach's fifth book. Born in Tournai, Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898) grew up in Ghent where he met Emile Verhaeren at secondary school, going on to study law in Ghent and Paris meeting Catulle Mendès and François Coppée during his visits at the Cercle des Hydropathes. Rodenbach also befriended Mallarmé at Théodore de Banville's house in Paris, becoming a habitué of the Tuesday meetings at Mallarmé's house on the rue de Rome. According to Roland de Marès Rodenbach "était un des rares, avec Henri de Régnier, à donner élégamment la réplique au maître de L’Après-midi d’un Faune, qui était le plus exquis causeur du monde." As an regular contributor for the French-language literary review La Jeune Belgique he organized a tour for Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, an uncle of his wife Anna Urbain. After Villiers' death, Rodenbach asked Mallarmé to introduce the writer to Belgian literary circles.
Rodenbach will, of course, always be associated with the melancholy and intimist novella Bruges-la-Morte, shrouded in fog and the sounds of bells tolling in the silent streets of desolate Bruges only brightened up by Hugues Viaene's fetishist fixation on the hair and the dress of his late wife, but narrowing down his oeuvre to that single book would be like, well, remembering Hal Hartley only for Trust.