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A very neat collection of popular songs, most from the 1850s, of the sort circulated in ephemeral printed and manuscript song sheets. Highlights include: Est-ce le hatchich qui t’a mis comme ça: an uncommon reference to hashish in this context, and a song (in common with several others in the manuscript) for which we can find no printed source. Sung to the tune of ‘Aÿ chiquita’, this is a woman’s complaint to her suitor, with the chorus:

‘Est-ce l’absinthe, ou bien encore,
Le hatchich qui t’as mis, dis-moi,
Dans cet état que j’aborre,
Et tu veux m’aimer! Ah! Tais-toi.’

This is hardly Baudelaire, but a pleasing contemporary parallel to Les Paradis artificiels.

Others include Les Cris de Paris, Les Chemins de fer and Les Anges de la charité ou les inondés de 1856 and there are songs attributable to Pierre Dupont and Charles Durand, both popular in the 1850s and 60s. Some are in dialect and typically, the subjects tend towards love, drink and gastronomy, but there are also a couple alluding to the language of flowers. The compilation is scrupulously neat—and is presumably, in part, an exercise in penmanship.

First edition with Sigros’s illustrations, tirage de tête, one of 16 copies with a suite and an original drawing (total edition 1500).

Second edition (lower cover giving ‘sixième mille, first published 1929). A drug-inspired spiritualist novella by Magre (1877-1941), which takes place between the world of dreams and reality. Magre had lived a colourful and bohemian life, Figaro remarking in 1924: ‘Magre est un anarchiste, un individualiste, un sadique, un opiomane. Il a tous les défauts, c’est un très grand écrivain. Il faut lire son œuvre’. After 1919 he became a devotee of the theosophist teachings of Madame Blavatsky.

First editions of two very scare annuals printed for Angelo Mariani, novelettes with a partially graphic narrative extolling the virtues of his wildly popular coca wine (Vin Mariani). Each copy here is number 38 of 50 copies on japon (of total editions of 500 copies). Mariani commissioned numerous bibliophilic productions from leading publishers and illustrators to promote his product. He had created his coca wine in 1863 and with an active content of around 6 milligrams per ounce it found enthusiastic drinkers all over the world, including Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII.

First edition thus. Of a total edition of 170 copies, this is one of 16 copies with an additional suite of plates and one original illustration. Un mangeur d’opium is an extract from Des Paradis Artificiels and is illustrated throughout with coloured woodcuts by Leon Masson. Rare: OCLC lists the Bn copy only.