Fantasmagorie

Paris, 1939. Original printed wrappers, preserved in glassine. Presentation inscription from the translator on note card laid in. In very good condition. First edition of the first French translation of Carroll’s longest poem, one of an edition of only 155 copies. The text is divided into 7 cantos of discussion between a human narrator and a ghost. Each canto is comprised of 5-line verses with a variable rhyme scheme. For words that do not easily translate to French but are necessary to the content of the poem, such as Poltergeist and Banshee, the translator included vocabulary footnotes. This book represents an important moment in the reception and cross-cultural appeal of Lewis Carroll’s work.
OCLC locates only one copy in the U.S., at UVA.