WITH VICTOR HUGO'S CONDOLENCES

Les roses noires …

Paris, Amyot, 1845.

8vo, pp. [iv], 428; foxed throughout, but still a very good copy; top-edge gilt, the others uncut, in contemporary French half morocco with marbled sides, raised bands, spine lettered gilt; very light wear to corners.

£400

Approximately:
US $549€466

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Les roses noires …

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Scarce first edition of this anthology of French verse by Meshchersky, posthumously brought to press by his mother and friends, publishing – for the first time – Victor Hugo’s letter of condolence to the prince's mother.

Victor Hugo, along with the likes of Dumas and Balzac, frequented the Parisian salon hosted by Meshchersky’s mother, Ekaterina Ivanovna Chernysheva. Meshchersky’s sudden death at the age of thirty-six moved Victor Hugo to write a letter of condolence to the young poet’s grieving mother on 11 November 1844, printed here on p. 425: ‘One cannot console a mother, Madame; one must cry with her … [Meshchersky] was a talent among men; he is a soul radiant in heaven. He received everything from Providence; he had been refused nothing. He was worthy of envy and tenderness in all things, and his exceptional nature was matched by his exceptional destiny’ (trans.).

Les roses noires gathers Meshchersky’s late verse and includes a dramatisation of Pushkin’s The Gypsies; the inspiration for the other pieces is often Russian, both historical (the False Dmitri; the story of Artamon Matveev, the ill-fated adviser of Peter the Great) and literary (his short drama ‘Svetlana’ is based on Zhukovsky’s famous ballad). Others highlight Meshchersky’s interests in European culture, with appearances from Raphael, Camoens, and Faust (he had apparently met Goethe as a child). Meshchersky served in Russian missions to Dresden, Turin, and Paris, and all his writings were published abroad.

OCLC finds three copies in the US (Duke, Kansas, Stanford), and one in the UK (British Library).

Mezhov, Puschkiniana 3278.

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