BAUDELAIRE (Charles). Les Paradis artificiels. Opium and has - Lot 80

BAUDELAIRE (Charles). Les Paradis artificiels. Opium and hashish. Paris, Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1860. Large in-12, 18.7x12.2cm, (4of which the last is blank)-iv-304-(2 of which the last is blank) pp. with title printed in red and black ink, garnet half-maroquin with corners, cloisonné ribbed spine decorated with vegetal motifs, roses and laurel branches, gilt fillet on the leather edges of the boards, gilt head, covers with 1860 date and spine preserved (binding circa 1900). First edition. A first-issue copy with the title and cover correctly dated 1860. Opium and hashish. Like Gautier and Nerval, Baudelaire had been interested in hashish, had participated as a young man in the "club des haschischins" and published an essay "Du vin et du hachisch" in Le Messager de l'Assemblée in 1851. Here, his recollections occupy the first half of the book ("Le Poème du haschisch"); the second part is an adaptation of Confessions of an english opium eater by Thomas de Quincey, who had just died in 1859 ("Unmangeur d'opium"). LesParadis artificiels also gave him the opportunity to reflect on art, poetry and the misery of existential anguish. Baudelaire, in other works in verse and prose, would use the same words to evoke the broadening of the mind that comes from the intoxication of art. A fine copy. Attached, the portrait of Charles Baudelaire engraved by Félix Bracquemond after the painting by Émile de Roy in 1844 and first published in 1869 by Charles Asselineau in his biography of the poet (printed on hollande laid paper, scorched mark).