*William BECKFORD]. Preface to Vathek / reprinted from Beckford's French original by Stéphane Mallarmé. Paris, chez l'Auteur [A. Labitte], 1876; in-12 square tan half-chagr. with smooth spine titled in gilt lettering, case-hardened boards, marbled paper covers (without spine with printed label), turquoise silk cordonnet. First separate non-commercial edition*. One of 95 ex. on fine laid paper, without filigr. (Hollande?), from the great Geneva printer Jules-Guillaume Fick, much appreciated by Mallarmé for his "exact and vigilant assistance" (Marchal Corr. 372); not numbered (space provided below the justif. with printed "N°"), for example those of Camille Mauclair or Leconte de Lisle. Autograph letter signed in red ink on the bl. f., printed with the only A intended for an ex-dono (see idem 60) To "M. Robert de Montesquiou, / très-amicalement, / Four corrections in black ink, consistent with those of other ex-donos (cf. Galantaris, 2014, no. 327): p. xxv, deletion of two words; p. xxxvii: il faut empêcher/ons; p. xxxviii: un langage fautif /français. Galantaris notes the signature of Mallarmé's maternal great-great-grandfather, syndic André-François Knapen, of the "Chambre Royale & Syndicale des Libraires & Imprimeurs de Paris" (ibid. pp. 464 & 465), in the privilege register of 1787 (reproduced in the 3 fac.-sim. in fine). * The mention En vente refers only to the edition of the text with preface in an in-8 vol. at 220 copies by Adolphe Labitte, bookseller of the Bibliothèque nationale, vol. described below, - and not to the justif. note of this preface which follows: "Detached from the volume, the preface opposite (the print run of which on special paper is limited to 95 copies) is not for sale; and only fragments can be reproduced in any other edition of Vathek. // N°". Provenance: Comte Robert de Montesquiou. Drouot, Maurice Escoffier exp., 25/4/1923 n° 476 (ex-libris). - Pierre Berès later (pencil note). - Bibliothèque d'un amateur [Auguste Lambiotte], 4th part, Drouot, Chrétien exp. [Maurice Chalvet rédacteur,cf. 46] n° 206, bought by Baron Louis de Sadeleer (ex-libris): "very beautiful", he notes in his catalog.