*Stéphane MALLARMÉ. Les Poésies. Frontispiece by F. Rops. Bruxelles, Deman, (February 20) 1899; gr. in-8 full soft gray chagr. set with a gilt fillet, smooth spine similarly framed with a rectangular compartmented fillet, that of the label in beige chagr. titled in gold, lining and endpapers in Japanese paper, t. gilt, untrimmed, period marbled slipcase (Paul Claessens Fils). Partly posthumous first edition, with 15 additional poems. Ex. of undetermined current edition on tinted laid paper. Frontispiece by F. Rops on vellum. New reduced and retouched heliogravure of La Grande Lyre [see 46/2]. A book with delicate gilding on exquisitely supple leather, whose enchanting opening on a marvel of Japanese paper with birds soaring above a carpet of fine green rushes sprinkled with silver dots, as on their prints when engravers crushed the mother-of-pearl of oysters to simulate snow: "everything in the world exists to end in a book". Paul Claessens fils, Henry Van de Velde's bookbinder, shows in this sublime binding all his extraordinary talent when he puts it at the service of the greatest simplicity. Impeccable, even if the cover has browned from contact with the wood-paper flyleaf. This copy has crossed the century in perfect anonymity, without the shadow of a signature or ancient provenance. We can see the secret imprint of Octave Maus.