Isidoro Luciano Ducasse (Conde de Lautréamont). Poeta Uruguayo
Montevideo: Peña Hnos. 1926. First edition. 16 pp. Original stapled wrappers. A bit of toning and handling wear, staple rusted, but solid and complete.
Previous owner’s signature to the title and dedication pages, with elegant annotations throughout in ink. An obscure work by an instigador of the Nativismo movement, in which he attempts to situate the author of Maldoror as a distinctly Uruguayan writer. Ipuche was a friend of Borges at this time, during which the two collaborated on the little magazine Proa.
“The present pamphlet is dedicated to the Guillot Muñoz brothers, ‘y por cuyo libro fui al Libro del Furioso Desolado’ - presumably a reference to their work Lautréamont et Laforgue, which had been published the year prior. It was through the brothers that Ipuche became one of the small handful of people (the others being Jules Supervielle and Mendez Gabariños) to examine the daguerrotype of Isidore Ducasse given to the Guillot Muñoz brothers by Mrs. Jean-Julien Ducasse, before it was seized by the Montevideo police during a raid and disappeared. According to the account by Enrique Pichon-Rivière, Ipuche thought that in the photograph Ducasse had the air of a young Montevideano, and it was perhaps out of this inference that the present work was conceived.” (Adam Davis)
The book is illustrated with a single unattributed plate bearing a striking full page woodcut entitled “Poulpe au regarde de soie,” a reference to the passage in Maldoror in which the protagonist turns into an octopus in order to consume God (“Taken unawares he struggled for a few moments against that viscous embrace, which contracted and contracted. . .”)
Rare. OCLC locates only three holdings, Arizona, Alberta, BL. Item #2624
Price: $2,250.00