Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1883

8vo, pp. 163, 3pp. index. Tissue guard to frontispiece. Original printed wrappers and glassine. Partly unopened, edges uncut. Spine split at pp. 96-7, age-toning to text block, some chipping to leading edges, glassine split and chipped with some loss at head of spine.

First edition of Lorrain's second book, a collection of poems. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO THE FRENCH SYMBOLIST WRITER MARCEL SCHWOB: ' A l'auteur des Embrusseneuses être [illegible] à Marcel Schwob, à [illegible] verte son ami Jean Lorrain'.

Dandy, ether addict and gay devotee of rough trade, Paul Duval [1855-1906] was born into a wealthy shipbuilding family. His father having insisted he adopt a pseudonym, Jean Lorrain pursued a literary career devoted to high art and low sex: situated chronologically between de Sade and Genet, his flights of obscene fantasy often outstrip them both. Lorrain died at the age of fifty when, mortally weakened by syphillis and drug abuse, an enema perforated his colon.

Lorrain's second published work, preceded only by Les Sangs des Dieux, published the same year.