Xavier FORNERET. Lot n° 26

And the moon gave and the dew fell. Dijon, Decailly, 1836. Booklet in-8: stapled, printed cover. Original edition of great rarity, illustrated with a lithographed frontispiece. The short story is preceded by the letter addressed by Xavier Forneret to the Revue de la Côte-d'Or, proposing this text for publication, and followed by the negative answer of J.-F.-Jules Pautet, director of the aforementioned review, addressed to the author on July 3, 1836. The director of the publication gave the reason for his refusal for a journal "which, in terms of language, should rather follow the movement than provoke it". This remark gave rise to a famous article in La Révolution surréaliste in 1927, probably written by André Breton, which preceded the reproduction of Et la lune donnait et la rosée tombait (No. 9-10, 1927, pp. 12-17): "An unknown: Xavier Forneret. This name has not even left its initials on the tall trees of the forest where we are lost, of the forest at the edge of which Racine, that idiot, has his life-size statue, Lamartine, that cow, has his marble mausoleum, and M. Paul Souday, Baudelaire's insulter, is trying to transport his pile of manure the color of Time. [...] Between Borel and Lautréamont, he wavers on the road that leads in 1835 to a certain theatre in Dijon on which the Black Man is waving. Who is Forneret? We don't know. He is the black man. When we met him: "And the moon was giving... And the dew was falling." But above all a voice always unheard, which is that of Love, tore the sky and the earth apart. Forneret? A man we met in the darkness and kissed hands with." Copy in poor condition, cover torn with missing second cover, foxing, but complete with lithographed frontispiece. From the library of Jules Coüet (no. 1046). Attached is an autograph letter signed by Forneret which echoes the refusal of the Revue de la Côte-d'Or. From Mirmande, on August 18, 1851, Forneret addresses a journalist or editor: "I have not come to torment you, to tell you that I have no news of you. No; it is only to warn you that, in the event that L'Événement publishes verses that I address to it, you should think about this: that I never want to abuse your mediation, if it pleases you to lend it to me sometimes [...].