Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Major New Acquisition: 54 issues of the Revue Anecdotique, 1876-77 / '79!

The Revenant Archive has recently acquired 54 issues of the rare Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique (Anecdotal, Litterary, Artistic and Bibliographic Gazette), a journal published in the 1870s--a transitional time in the history of the avant-garde--and aimed at cultural historians, archivists, and others involved in Romanticist and post-Romantic cultural history. It was edited and mostly written by Georges d'Heylli, chief archivist of the Comédie française, and issued by his press Librairie des Bibliophiles, which published small editions of contemporary post-Parnassian and proto-Symbolist poetry (they were the first publisher of Verlaine, for instance) and new editions of earlier avant-garde and esoteric literature. (The Revenant Archive contains the pseudonymous Monte-Naken's Rimes futiles from this press.)

1876:


Heylli encouraged his readers to become contributors, and invited 'letters to the editor' in the form of material donated from his subscribers' personal archives for reproduction in the journal. Most of the contributions were probably acquired in this way, and among his most frequent reader-contributors was Jules Claretie, one of the first active historians of avant-garde romanticism and of revolutionary movements in France, several of whose books and personal relics are included in the Revenant Archive. A number of letters and other texts from Claretie's personal archive are reproduced in the Gazette.


1877:


Published during the time when the Romanticist generation in France, including the founders of the avant-garde community, were beginning to die, this journal was an important part of a collective effort by a younger generation to preserve and share this history, which might otherwise have become altogether lost to history--a project of historiography, preservation, and research that is continued today by the Revenant project.

1879:

This collection is of very great potential value to researchers of French Romanticist and history, historiography, and bibliography; but coming hot on the heels of adding over 40 issues of Karr's Les Guêpes, these will take a while to fully process. Tables of contents and more expansive 'highlights' will be updated periodically. Here's a sneak peek at a few of the more exciting issues--See the new tab above for the full catalogue of the collection.

Names of people whose work is part of the Revenant Archive are in boldface.



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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 1: Jan. 15, 1876. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, 32 pp.

Contents: Avertissement (Founding Statement) / Mlle. Déjazet / Guéronnière / Charles Lafitte / The Journals in 1875 / 'Le Raillement' (The Rally, cultural-political journal) / Les Trois musquetaires (The Three Musketeers, by Dumas & Maquet) / 'Les Danicheff' / Mme. Arnould-Plessy (Comedienne) / Mlle. Schneider (opera singer) / Music and Theatre in 1875 /  Le captaine pianist Voyer / 'The Sentimental Voyage' (by Sterne) and Jules Janin / Bibliography (recent publications) / Miscellany

Highlights: The journal's mission statement argues that the monopolisation of the publishing industry, by crushing the small press communities and removing publication from the hands of writers and artists themselves, had taken over the role of censorship from the State, and promotes self-publishing as the necessary response. Also an overview of the previous year's new cultural and political  journals, including one called Le Raillement whose editorial team included the ex-Evadamist socialist Alphonse Esquiros; an overview of the major Parisian theaters during the previous year; a publishing history of Dumas & Maquet's Three Musketeers; an article revealing that Bohême Doyenné member Arsène Houssaye had once translated Sterne's Sentimental Voyage, but refused to make grammatical alterations demanded by the publisher, and that it was completed and published by Jules Janin, a nemesis of the Bouzingo.
 
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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 2: Jan. 31, 1875. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, Numbered 33-64 (31 pp.)

Contents: Anniversaire de Molière / Victor Hugo / Pils (Painter) / Le Prix de Rome / The General Battle / Le Registre de Lagrange / Le Napoléon de M. Seurre / Jules Janin et l'Ane mort / André Léo / Mlle. Croizette, Fechter, Arnal (Theatre reviews) / Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Bougeois Gentleman--Theatre review) / Varia (Special Features).

Highlights: A first-hand account of Victor Hugo's daily life and schedule; an account of how Jules Janin's novel The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman set out to mock Frenetic Romanticism but ended up being ironically championed by them. Janin became a fierce enemy of Petrus Borel and other Frenetics.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 3: Feb. 15, 1876. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 65-96 (31 pp.)

Contents: Frédérick Lemaître / Le sénateur Hugo / Deux lettres de Victor Hugo / Mme. Michelet / Crevat / Sarah Bernhardt / Mafame Ceverlet et le divorce / Adolphe Belot / Bulletin bibliographique (New Publications by Librairie des Bibliophiles) / Feuilleton rétrospectif: Les Frères d'armes (Newspaper retrospective: Brothers in Arms)

Highlights: A critical biography & list of roles played by Fréderick Lemaître, one of the most influential Romanticist actors; a satirical poem about Victor Hugo's recent election to the senate, two re-printed short notes from Hugo c.1862, one of them attached to an anecdote about him and Garibaldi; and an anonymous parody of Hugo, reprinted from a rare, anonymous pamphlet that had been printed in 1865 (continued in the next issue).

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 4: Feb. 29, 1876. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 97-128 (31 pp.)

Contents: Les Élections du 20 février / L'Etrangère (The Stranger, by Dumas the younger) / Les Fantasiers-Oler / Le Palais de l'Élysée / Nécrologie (Obituaries) / La vente Barye (The Barye Auction) / La Bibliothèque nationale 
Varia (Special Feature) / Bulletin Bibliographique (Recent Publications) / Feuilleton rétrospectif: Les Frères d'armes (suite) (Newspaper retrospective: Brothers in Arms (conclusion) )

Highlights: A survey of the complex political situation in the wake of the Feb., 1876 elections, in which Heylli explains that this journal on modern cultural history must also preserve traces of its current context for future researchers; reviews of a Dumas play and an opera; an account of pieces and prices from a recent auction of the Romanticist sculptor Barye, who had died six months earlier; a statistical analysis of requests, registered readers & researchers at the Bibliothèque Nationale each year from 1868-1875; and the conclusion of an anonymous 1865 parody of Hugo, the first part of which appeared in the previous issue.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 10: May 31, 1876. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 289-320 (31 pp.)

Contents: Funérailles de Michelet (Obsequies of Michelet) / Héritage littéraire de Michelet / Alphonse Esquiros / Eduard d'Anglemont / Petits Portraits, par Saint-Beuve / Théâtres: Recettes et droits d'auteur (The author's payments and copyright) / Special Features: Le Santon de Gérome / Le Prix Thérouanne / Comment on parfait un sonnet (How one perfects a sonnet) / Une Manie du jour (A mania of the day) / Le Lit de Mme. de P . . . (The Bed of Mrs. P . . . ) / Femmes et Navires cuirassés (Women and Ironclad Ships) / A Propos de porcelaines (Regarding Porcelain) / L'Homme-Femme (The Man-Woman) / Le Préjugé du vendredi (The Prejudice against Friday).

Highlights: This issue contains several obituaries of Romanticists with ties to the first-generation avant-garde: the socialist, occultist, Evadamiste and senator Alphonse Esquiros, who had been close to the Bouzingo group in the 1830s; the frenetic poet Eduard d'Anglemont ("With Éd. d'Anglemont passes away the last representative of the skeletal poetry dressed in black."); and the Romanticist historian Jules Michelet, to whom much of the issue is devoted. A series of two- or three-sentence literary 'portraits' by Saint-Beuve of members of the Romanticist community including Gautier, Béranger, Dumas, Musset, Delphine Girardin, Hugo, Janin, and even the murderer Lacordaire. Also a comparison of ticket sales at each of the major Paris theatres in 1874-75, and an odd (unsympathetic) reference to what seems to have been an unnamed musician who was performing in drag.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 11: June 15, 1876. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 321-352 (31 pp.)

Contents: Académie française: Réception de J.B. Dumas / Ventes artistiques (Art auctions) / La Comédie française: L'Anniveraire de Corneille / Thêatres: Caricaturistes-Auteurs / L'éditeur Bernard Latte / Cellarius, ses premières élèves (Cellarius, his first lifts [?]) / Nécrologie: George sand , etc. (Obituaries: George Sand).  
Varia (Special Features): Quelque Sultans (Some Sultans) / Le poëte d'Anglemont / Un billet de Ch. Nodier à Dumas (A Letter from Charles Nodier to Alexandre Dumas) / Rien de nouveau sous le soleil (Nothing new under the sun) / Un catalogue tentateur (A catalog seducer) / La Poésie aux banquets de Bordeaux en 1874 / La Carte à payer d'une réception officielle (Bill for an official reception).

Highlights: An essay on the (largely unpublished) literary work by Romanticist cartoonists Daumier, Gavarni, Grévin (also a costume designer), and others; a dinner invitation c. 1833-34 from the Romanticist polyglot Charles Nodier to Alexandre Dumas, with reference to one of the frequent riots and attempted insurrections of that time; extensive biographical-critical obituaries of the cross-dressing feminist Romantic George Sand, and of the Romanticist music publisher & organiser Bernard Latte, and one for a prominent polka dancer named Cellarius; a critical appreciation of the Frenetic poet d'Anglemont, whose obituary had appeared in the previous issue; and a portion of a bill detailing the exorbitant expenses of an Imperial Reception in 1860, d'Heylli's introduction to which quotes Gustave Karr's early avant-garde periodical Les Guêpes, 44 volumes of which are held in the Revenant Archive.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 1, No. 21: Nov. 15, 1876. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 257-288 (31 pp.)

Contents: Les Cimetières de Paris / Mémoires de Philarète Chasles / Les Trois Cas de la quinzaine (Three cases from this fortnight): M. du Sommerard, mlle. Rousseil, M. Pasdeloup / Thêatres: Paul Forestier, La Forza del Destino / Nécrologie (Obituaries): Mlle. Priola, Perraud, le Cardinal Antonelli.  
Varia (Features): La Butte des Moulins (The Hills of Windmills) / Comment on forme un jury d'expropriation (How one forms a jury of dispossession) / Notes pantagruéliques (Pantagruelic Notes--Rabelais reference) / La Chambre aux bains froids (The Chamber of cold baths) / La Bosse de Victor Hugo (The talent/hump of Victor Hugo--untranslatable pun) / Le Chameau de Félicien David (Félicien David's camel) / L'Homme au couteau (Man with the knife) / Une Dédicace de Devert à Arnal / Un Billet de Victor Hugo (A letter of Hugo) / Ce que coûte un bidet suisse (What a Swiss bidet costs) / Le poëte Wihl / Un Wagon-imprimerie (A Printing-Wagon).

Highlights: An essay on the Saint-Simonist composer Félicien David; a guide to which avant-gardists and Romanticists are buried in which of the Parisian cemeteries; a review of the posthumous memoirs of the Romanticist translator and literary historian Philarète Chasles; a funny story about the Saint-Simonist Romantic composer Félicien David, who was reputed (wrongly) to have a camel; a short article and humorous poem exploring (partly on the basis of Chasles' memoir) whether Victor Hugo was slightly hump-backed; and an essay on the history of an historic Paris neighbourhood about to be demolished for redevelopment.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 2, No. 5: March 15, 1877. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 129-160 (31 pp.)

Contents: Les Incidents de la quinzaine (Occurrences of the fortnight) / La Vente Janin (The Janin Auction) / Les Livres promis de Victor Hugo (The forthcoming books of Victor Hugo) / Alfred de Musset / Deux Billets de Léon Gozlan (Two Letters of Gozlan) / Thêatres: Justice, le Timbre d'argent (Justice, by Catulle Mendès & The Golden Tone, by Saint-Saëns) / Nécrologie (Obituaries): Henri Nicolle, J. Autran.
Varia (Features): Un Chouan contesté (A contested Royalist) / La Voix de M. Victor Hugo / Napoléon III aérostier / Une dernière Pensée d'Autran / Mme Joséphine Butler / Le Coq observateur du dimache / L'Opéra en quatrains / Petite Gazette. Feuilleton: Méjabovar, parodie de la Légende des siécles.

Highlights: A review of the play Justice by Catulle Mendès, the founder of the avant-garde Parnasse Contemporain group, and one of Saint-Saëns' opera The Golden Tone; a sampling from the bibliography of the personal library of the Romanticist critic (and enemy of the Bouzingo) Jules Janin;  a list of unfinished works by Victor Hugo; a jocular list by of the leading bibliophiles in the Romanticist & post-Romantic community, by their rank in the imagined 'Bibliophile Army', by the Frenetic Romanticist & avant-archivist Paul Lacroix (a.k.a. Bibliophile Jacob); a sequel to the parody of Hugo's Légende des siécles published in issues 3-4 of the previous year; a rejoinder to a pamphlet by the British feminist Josephine Butler denouncing the prevalence of prostitution in Paris; a letter from the poet Joseph Autran, who had just died, to the avant-garde historian and novelist Jules Claretie; and a letter by Napoléon III about ballooning.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 2, No. 9: May 15, 1877. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 257-288 (31 pp.)

Contents: Salon de 1877 / M. Saint-René-Taillandier / Lettres à une autre inconnue / La Baronne de Feuchères / Une Poésie de Claretie / Le Prix Cressent / Les Hugenots jugés par Schumann (judged by Robert Schumann) / Thêatres: Jean Dacier.
Varia (Features): Le Pasteur Moffat / Une Nuit de noce (A Night of Weddings) / Une École nationale de cuisine (A National School of Cooking) / Ventes Oppenheim et Sedelmeyer (Auctions) / La Morte du duc d'Orleans (Death of the Duke of Orleans) / La morte de Gérard de Nerval (Death of Nerval) / Fantasie grammaticale / La Bibliothèque de l'Épée (The Library of Swords) / Échange de quatrains / Petite Gazette.

Highlights: a letter reporting the suicide of Bouzingo co-founder Gérard de Nerval, by his friend Philoxène Boyer, one of the last people to see Gérard alive; an unpublished poem attacking financial exploitation by the avant-writer/historian Jules Claretie, taken from a letter to the Romantic Alfred de Vigny in 1860; an anonymous poem playing with grammar in a way I have not yet been able to sit down and analyze; two poetic inscriptions by Romanticist poets Jules Janin and Éduard Fournier, inscribed in the same copy of Janin's translation of Horace; a report on the Salon of 1877, focused not on art criticism but on statistical comparisons of works exhibited since the end of the Third Empire, and a list of portraits shown that year; and a reprinted, harshly negative review of Meyerbeer's popular opera by the German Romantic composer Robert Schumann.
 
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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 2, No. 21: Nov. 15, 1877. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 257-288 (31 pp.)

Contents: La Police sous Louis-Philippe (Police Under King Louis-Philippe) / L'Arrestation de M. Theirs (Arrest of Thiers) / Une Portrait de M. Thiers / Napoleon III et George Sand / L'Esprit de Theodore Barrière  (The Spirit of...) / Thêatres: Rothomago, Mlle. Richard
Varia (Features): Jules Favre prophète / Le jeune poête Hugo / Ouvrez le dictionnaire / L'Aiguille de Cléopâtre (Cleopatra's needle) / Le mort saison le vif / Le Champ des Navets / Éprouvettes matrimoniales (Matrimonial Testers) /

Highlights: a reprinted article by socialist feminist George Sand attacking Napoleon III; a reprinted article from an 1834 opposition newspaper about the Royal secret police; a first-hand account of the arrest of Adolphe Thiers (future president of the Third Republic and brutal suppressor of the Paris Commune) during the coup d'etat of Napoleon III--he was arrested, it turns out, at a performance of Le Barbe-bleu (Bluebeard), an opera about a medieval serial murderer (the Revenant Archive includes the sheet music of a dance from the opera written by the Frenetic composer Musard); a short essay and extract from Satire de l'Enrôleur politique (Political Recruiter)--one of Hugo's earliest poems, a satirical dialogue between a democrat and a royalist, written when Hugo himself still supportred the King; and an article on the nacent Free Love movement, citing American feminist Victoria Woodhull.
 
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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 2, No. 23: Dec. 15, 1877. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 321-352 (31 pp.)

Contents: La Crise (Crisis) / A Propos d'Hernani / Dumas fils jugé par Zola / Le Christ a't'il été prêtre? (Was Christ a Priest?) / Ary Scheffer et le Deux Décembre / Les Premières soirées d'Hernani / Thêatre: François le Champi (by George Sand) / Bibliographie: La Nabab (by Alphonse Daudet).
Varia (Features): Le Tombeau de Montyon / Vente Courbet (Courbet Auction) / Le Dîner d'Hernani / L'Amour des livres / Cinq vers de Lamartine / L'Arbre de Cracovie / A voleurs, voleur et demi (To thieves, thief and a half) / Les Combles / Casse-tête généalogique (Genealogical Brain-teaser) / Une Histoire de tapis (History of Carpet).

Highlights: The daily diary of a performer from the first run of Hugo's Hernani, ecording audience reaction & other details for each of the play's first thirty-three performances, from the personal archive of avant-garde historian Jules Claretie; a satirical anti-Romanticist song found in a newspaper from 1833, ridiculing Hernani; a note from Hugo to Sarah Bernhardt after she played in a revival of Hernani; and an article by Zola criticizing that same play, and one in which he attacks Dumas the younger; an essay on Romanticist satirist Ary Scheffer's revolutionary activities under the Bourbon, Orleans, and Neo-Napoleonic regimes, contributed by Jules Claretie; a review of George Sand's play François le Champi; an account of the auction of the estate of the radical paiter Gustave Courbet, including a portrait of the anarchist activist Joseph Proudhon; and an extract from an anthology of 18th century documents edited by Frenetic archivist Bibliophile Jacob.

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Gazette anecdotique, littéraire, artistique et bibliographique. Year 4, No. 12: June 30, 1879. ed. Georges d'Heylli. Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris. Paperback Duodecimo, numbered 353-384 (31 pp.)

Contents: La Comédie française à Londres / Sarah Bernhardt et Rachel... catholiques / Vente de faux autographes (Auction of Forged Signatures) / Émile Zola et les Mystères de Marseille / Bibliographie: Théophile Gautier / Nécrologie le Prince d'Orange; le Prince impérial.
Varia (Features):  Lettre inédite de Casimir Delavigne / La Doyenne des maréchales de France / L'acteur Vernet et Tzar Nicolas I / Chez Sarah Bernhardt / Subventions théatrales (Theatrical Subsidies) / Chateauriand et l'Académie / Errata.

Highlights: Three previously unpublished poems by Bouzingo co-founder Théophile Gautier, one of them Visual Poem--an acrostic with letters facing two dimensions and two typefaces, with lines against both both margins; and an anecdote about one of Gautier's many refusals by the French Academy (he was never elected), both drawn from a (then) forthcoming memoir by Théo's daughter; and a virtuosic toast in verse by Gautier, drawn from an unauthorized Belgian press containing unsigned erotic poems (forged, according to Heylli) and odes to Napoleon III (which he considers genuine) attributed to Gautier.

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