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Brussels: Alliance Typographique (M.-J. Poot et Compagnie). 1873. 8vo. In the original publisher's wrappers, printed in red and black, housed in a suede-lined black morocco-backed chemise with orange marbled sides, within a matching slipcase; pp. 53, [1 (blank)]; the slightest trace to foxing to fore-edge; else an excellent copy, uncut and unopened. First edition, in exceptional condition, of Rimbaud's highly influential, confessional prose poem Une saison en enfer (A Season in Hell), the only work published at Rimbaud's expense, printed shortly after the dissolution of his turbulent relationship with Verlaine. In Une saison en enfer, the eighteen-year-old Rimbaud (1854-1891) 'gathers and reassembles the chaos of his life, leaving behind him the burning, powerful lines of a delayed poetic art' (En francais dans le texte, trans.). Rimbaud had met Verlaine in Brussels in July of 1873, where Verlaine shot him in the arm with a revolver. Verlaine, charged with attempted murder, was sentenced to two years in prison, and Rimbaud returned to Charleville to complete the present work, begun in April and finished in August. At the time of publication, only six copies were known, distributed by Rimbaud to Verlaine, Delahaye, and his childhood friend Ernest Milllot, amongst others, the remainder thought to have been destroyed by Rimbaud along with his manuscripts; the completion of Illuminations the following year would mark the beginning of le silence de Rimbaud, his promise never to return to poetry. The opening poem positions Rimbaud as 'the infernal bridegroom' (l'epoux infernal) and Verlaine 'the foolish virgin' (la vierge folle). Rimbaud had made an initial payment to the printer for Une saison en enfer but failed to settle his subsequent accounts, and the majority of the print run was retained in the printer's warehouse in Brussels for nearly three decades. 425 copies (the remainder discarded due to water damage) were discovered in the printer's warehouse by Belgian lawyer and bibliophile Leon Losseau in 1901, although he would not publicise the discovery until 1915. Despite attempts by Rimbaud's brother-in-law (and posthumous publisher), Pierre-Eugene Dufour, to convince Losseau to destroy the newly discovered copies in keeping with Rimbaud's wishes, Losseau secretly distributed copies to a group of close friends, whom he had sworn to secrecy, sent others to Stefan Zweig, Emile Verhaeren, Maurice Maeterlinck, and Viele-Griffin, and on 24 November 1912 presented several copies to his fellow members of the Societe des bibliophiles belges. OCLC finds ten copies in the US (Dartmouth, Harvard, Indiana, Morgan, Newberry, Northwestern, NYPL, UCLA, UT Austin, Yale), and only one in the UK (BL). Carteret II, p. 271 (calling for a total print run of c. 300 copies); En francais dans le texte 299 (pp. 278-9, 'this edition is all the more valuable as it is the only work whose publication was intended by its author', trans.). Not in Vicaire (cf. vol. VI, cols 1134-5). See Michaelides, 'Stefan Zweig's Copy of Rimbaud, "Une saison en enfer" (1873)', in The British Library Journal 14.2 (1988), pp. 109-203.
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