Phocas the Gardener

ORIGINAL EDITION. One of 12 numbered copies on Holland paper. Bound into the copy are 3 letters dated 1926, addressed by the author to A. Rolland de Renéville, providing biographical information, particularly about his schooling at Stanislas.

A source of inspiration for André Breton and Apollinaire, Francis Vielé-Griffin, a Symbolist poet born in the United States, is “today very unjustly forgotten”the founder of Surrealism confided in 1952 to journalist André Parinaud, whereas “within Symbolist and post-Symbolist circles, [he] was considered a master”.

According to Breton again, “his verse was the sunniest of the era, the most fluid”. A member of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium and co-founder of the Mallarmé Academy, Vielé-Griffin maintained rich friendships with many Belgian poets such as Albert Mockel and Émile Verhaeren.