Mallarme?: ‘Pages’ and ‘A throw of the dice’Published on State Library of NSW (https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au)

Mallarme?: ‘Pages’ and ‘A throw of the dice’

Even today scholars regard Ste?phane Mallarme? (1842-1898) as one of France's pre-eminent poets and so it isno surprise that I was excited to come across two of his rarest publications here in the State Library of New SouthWales collections. One of these is the groundbreaking 1897 poem, Un coup de de?s jamais n'abolira de hasard or A throw of the dice will never abolish chance. This ambitious work is full of esoteric symbolism and disjointedsyntax written in free verse which breaks free from typographical conventions such as flush-left alignment anduniform type. As you can see from the image the text cascades across the open-face pages with some words andphrases were emphasized through a larger font size while others switch from Roman to italic type and back. While a version was published in 1897 in the literary review Cosmopolis it was not until 1914, some 16 years afterhis death, that it was printed in a book form which approached Mallarmé's exacting vision for the typographicallayout and format of the poem. Mallarme? worked on a deluxe edition, illustrated with lithographs by Odilon Redon [1], with the firm of Lahure but it was abandoned after his death. The proof sheets and prints were eventually soldby the publisher.

Poe?me: un coup de de?s jamais n'abolira de hasard, par Ste?phane Mallarme?, Ed?itions de la Nouvelle revuefranc?aise, 1914, State Library of New South Wales RHQ/1003

Upon seeing proofs for the poem in the projected Lahure edition, Paul Valery [2] wrote:

It seemed to me that I was looking at the form and pattern of a thought, placed for the first time in finitespace. Here space itself truly spoke, dreamed, and gave birth to temporal forms. Expectancy, doubt,consternation, all were visible things. . . . There amid murmurs, insinuations, visual thunder, a wholespiritual tempest carried page by page to the extremes of thought, to a point of ineffable rupture - there the

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Mallarme?: ‘Pages’ and ‘A throw of the dice’Published on State Library of NSW (https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au)

marvel took place; there on the very paper some indescribable scintillation of final stars trembled infinitelypure in an inter-conscious void; and there on the same void with them, like some new form of matterarranged in systems or masses or trailing lines, coexisted the Word! I was struck dumb by thisunprecedented arrangement. It was as if a new asterism had proffered itself in the heavens; as if aconstellation had at last assumed a meaning. Was I not witnessing an event of universal importance, andwas it not, in some measure, an ideal enactment of the Creation of Language that was being presented tome on this table at this last minute, by this individual, this rash explorer, this mild and simple man who wasso unaffectedly noble and charming by nature?

This first edition of 1000 copies was printed at L'Imprimerie Sainte Catherine in Bruges on July 10, 1914. Of theseten 10 copies were printed on Montval paper [3] and a further 90 copies were printed on Vélin d'Arches [4]paper;both were bound in Japanese parchment paper wrappers.

The remaining 900 copies, of which this is an example, was printed and bound using ordinary paper. It waspublished by La Nouvelle Revue Française [5], which had been founded by André Gide [6], Jean Schlumberger [7]and Jacques Copeau as a literary review in 1908. In 1911, Gaston Gallimard [8], became one of its principalpartners and editors and he decided to publish 'A Throw of the Dice...'. This edition was prepared for publication byMallarmé's son-in-law Edmond Bonniot [9], and includes some of the poet's last corrections and recommendations.

Front Matter: un coup de de?s jamais n'abolira de hasard, par Ste?phane Mallarme?, Ed?itions de la Nouvellerevue franc?aise, 1914, State Library of New South Wales RHQ/1003

There are two copies of this book in the library (RHQ/1003 and TQ056711). The one pictured to the left wasdonated to the library as a part of the Randolph Hughes Collection of French and Pre-Raphaelite Literature [10].Loose inside the front cover, and alongside the Hughes' bookplate, is an interesting set of documents. Theseinclude an early C20th vintage print of an unidentified man, a published exegesis on Mallarme? and a newspaperclipping of Mallarme's obituary written by Henri Mondor. The second rare publication is Pages, a collection of Mallarme? poems published in 1891. The main feature in the

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Mallarme?: ‘Pages’ and ‘A throw of the dice’Published on State Library of NSW (https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au)

printing of this book is the copper etching in the original frontispiece. This was drawn by the impressionist, AugusteRenoir (1841-1919), who was a great friend of Mallarmé. The poet was introduced to Renoir by another famousimpressionist Édouard Manet sometime around 1873. Mallarme? was a great defender of modern painting andpublished his thoughts on the subject in numerous articles. In gratitude of this support, Manet and Renoir illustratedsome of his poems and painted portraits of him [11]. This illustration of a young woman is quite rare as thispublication had a very limited print run. This copy is listed in the frontispiece as being "No’ 73 of 275".

Stephane Mallarme, Pages, frontispiece etching by Auguste Rnoir, 1891 State Library of New South Wales,TQ057331

References:Mallarme?, S. (1914). Poe?me : Un coup de de?s jamais n'abolira de hasard [12]. Paris: Ed?itions de la Nouvellerevue franc?aise.Mallarme?, S. (1891). Pages [13], Ste?phane Mallarme?. Bruxelles: Edmond DemanMallarme?, S., & Weinfield, H. (1994). Collected poems / Ste?phane [14]Mallarme? ; translated, and with acommentary by Henry Weinfield. Berkeley: University of California Press.Jeremy Glazier, Los Angeles Review of Books, Un Coup d’idées: A New Translation of Mallarmé’s “A Roll of theDice [15].

Geoff Barker, Senior Curator, Research and Discovery, State Library of New South Wales, 2018

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Mallarme?: ‘Pages’ and ‘A throw of the dice’Published on State Library of NSW (https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au)

Source URL:https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/mallarme-pages-and-throw-dice

Links[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Val%C3%A9ry [3]http://en.canson.com/watercolour/canson-montval [4] http://www.arches-papers.com/velin-darches-arches-cover/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouvelle_Revue_Fran%C3%A7aise [6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Gide [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Schlumberger [8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Gallimard [9]http://gw.geneanet.org/pierfit?lang=en&p=edmond&n=bonniot [10] https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/primo-explore/search?query=sub,exact,%20Randolph%20Hughes%20Collection.,AND&tab=default_tab&search_scope=EEA&vid=SLNSW&mode=advanced&offset=0 [11]https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_de_St%C3%A9phane_Mallarm%C3%A9_(Manet) [12] https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLNSW_ALMA21116866700002626&context=L&vid=SLNSW&search_scope=EEA&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US [13] https://primo-slnsw.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLNSW_ALMA21123150080002626&context=L&vid=SLNSW&search_scope=EEA&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US. [14] https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLNSW_ALMA21105745110002626&context=L&vid=SLNSW&search_scope=EEA&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US [15] https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/un-coup-didees-a-new-translation-of-mallarmes-a-roll-of-the-dice/#!

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