Twelve Songs by Maurice Maeterlinck with Illustrations by Charles Doudelet

Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Publisher [Alderbrink Press], 1902 Hard cover, 8vo, in quarter cream cloth over brown paper covered boards, decorated with illustration and titles in brown to top board, the text printed on art paper, edges untrimmed, [36pp.] unpaginated, with limitation page at rear, 400 unnumbered copies. Contains historiated initial capitals and twelve half-page sized, or larger, illustrations by the French-born Symbolist Artist Charles Doudelet (1861-1938). In English and French. Publisher Ralph Fletcher Seymor was also the proprietor of the Alderbrink Press, the imprint not upon appearing in this book. He operated in Chicago from 1898. CONDITION: Very Good Minus, showing some wear to covers and corners, a cracked front hinge, soiling to spine, and light age-toning to text. Now in mylar.** Belgian-born Maeterlinck,(1862-1949) was acknowledged as an early adherent of the Symbolist movement in late nineteenth century art and letters, and the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911. He was also a noted playwright. In the Forward to this edition, the translator describes Maeterlinck's modern mysticism: "...he sought to penetrate to the innermost core of life by an unresisting surrender to the stream of sensation. Every mood of which an extremely subtle soul is capable, the emotional significance of color, of sound, of wind, and rain, of lightning and thunder; the passing play of light and shade, of our contacts with our fellows through touches of hands, exchanges of looks and words..." Poetry, he asserts, is the best expression of the spiritual consciousness. ** Frenchman Charles Doudelet's engraved illustrations are bold of line, divided into scenes reminiscent of a Renaissance emblem book. OCLC 1179213525. Will Ransom (1929) Aderbrink Press/ Ralph Seymor Fletcher checklist, No. 8 p., 196.. Limited Edition 400 copies. Hard Cover. Very Good Minus. Illus. by Charles Doudelet.