Les chansons de Bilitis Traduites du grec pour la première fois par P. L.

8vo. pp. 134. Dark blue goatskin with ‘crocodile’ onlays. Stamped binding. First edition, no. 110 of 480 copies ‘sur papier vélin.’ Contains six original crayon drawings by Jacques Lestrille bound in at end. Prefaced by Louÿs’ imaginary ‘Vie de Bilitis.’

These invented facile erotic poems of Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs were technically a literary forgery, at least at its outset. Soon after permitting his early readers to imagine a Greek original, composed by a lesbian courtesan of the sixth century BC, the imaginary friend of Sappho, Louÿs proudly acknowledged that he invented the chansons. Still, their literary merit has kept them alive. See J.-F. Jeandillou, Supercheries littéraires: la vie et l’oeuvre des auteurs supposés. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée; préface de Michel Arrivé. Geneva, 2001, pp. 3-16.

See Bib# 4102964/Fr# 1327 in this collection for the equally limited 1898 Mercure de France edition, containing a spurious portrait of Bilitis.

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