JAMMES (Francis). Almaïde d'Étremont or the History of a passionate young girl. Paris, Société du Mercure de France, 1901. In-18, 207-(3 of which the first and last are blank) pp, lavaliere morocco, pinched ribbed spine, purple morocco lining in a threaded lavaliere morocco frame, gilt moire endpapers, gilt edges, covers preserved, lined slipcase; spine tarnished, top board stained (H. Alix).
FIRST EDITION.
AUTOGRAPHICALLY SIGNED ENVOI "TO MRS. COLETTE WILLY, with the admiration one has for a caged squirrel..." WITH AUTOGRAPH POEM SIGNED AND DECORATED WITH A DRIED FLOWER. It is a passage of the "Sixteenth Elegy" of his collection The Mourning of Primroses published in the same year 1901: "the contracted mouths swallowed tears, / and the last flowers that you had picked me / were the most golden of the warm meadow...".
COPY OF 2 PIECES ADDRESSED TO COLETTE, enclosed: JAMMES (Francis). Portrait
photograph with autograph letter signed on the front, "to a faithful friend...". The writer is shown full-length, wearing his fishing gear, and accompanied by a dog (print on bristol board in postcard format). - NOAILLES (Anna de). Autograph letter signed to Colette. S.l., "Friday". "Dear friend, our Francis Jammes asks me to send you this photograph of him (which doesn't look like him at all, this Jammes dressed in a monk's habit that we know). He writes me that he is very touched and grateful for your friendship, and for what he feels is our zeal..." (2 pp. in-8).
Provenance : Colette (ex-libris vignette with the effigy of a squirrel, dated 1915). - The Parisian bookseller Richard Anacréon, friend of Colette. A handwritten leaflet mounted at the head gives here a copy of two letters addressed by Colette to Francis Jammes in 1904, concerning the present shipment and playing on the image of the squirrel.