[Rarebooks] FS: VIctor Hugo's first appearance in print, 1819

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[Hugo, Victor].   Receuil de L’Academie des Jeux Floraux.   Toulouse: Chez M.-J. Dalles, 1818-1821.   Four parts in three volumes, in original blue paper wrappers, printed labels on the first and third.   12, xvi, 77, [2], lxxii, 93, [3]; 10, xxxix, 53, [2]; [ii], 8, lxxvi, 74, [2] pp.   The paper of two of the spines has a few short to moderate tears, a few leaves with a touch of foxing, overall very good, housed in a straight-grained morocco solander case. 









This represents Hugo’s first appearances in print—there was a fourth part in 1822 which included another of his poems, which is not present here.  The Jeux Floraux was the oldest academy in France, founded by troubadours in 1323, and its annual contest, begun in 1324, gained renewed prestige in Hugo’s time to “a growing interest in the indigenous treasures of French culture, even those of the ‘barbaric’ Middle Ages” (Graham Robb, Victor Hugo: A Biography, p. 71).    







Victor’s brother, Eugene, won a prize in 1818 (his poem, “La Mort du Duc D’Enghien,” is on page [i] of the first volume here), but Victor surpassed him the following year by winning a Golden Amaranth for his ode “Les Vierges de Verdun,” and the highest honor, a Golden Lily, for another ode on a statue of Henry IV.   His other contributions include “Les Dernieres Bardes,” “Moise Sur Le Nil,” “Le Jeune Banni, Raymond a Emma,” “Les Deux Ages,” and “Quiberon.”   Carteret I, 384. 



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