Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 257, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1912 — Verlaine’s First Book [ARTICLE]

Verlaine’s First Book

A letter fished out of the collection of an autograph hunter reveals the occasion on which Verlaine’s work first attracted the attention of a critic. It was written, in 1867 by Eugene Vermersch to the editor of an ephemeral review entitled L’Esprit Nduveau, and it runs as follow: "My Dear Editor. —I owe you every apology for not responding sooner to your kind invitation to contribute to L’Esprit Nouveau, but I had not an idla in my head, and I did not like to send you any rubbish, as that would have been Impolite and ungrateful. If your columns are still open to me, I will ask for space for a review—an appreciation of the ‘Poemes Saturnlens,’ by Paul Verlaine, the unknown work of an unknown poet, which has fallen into my hands by accident Will you allow it to pass unobserved like ‘a star in the daytime or a flower by night’ as Monselet puts it? No you will not, you who style yourself L’Esprit Nouveau.” That was Verlaine's first review, but few people read it, and it failed to make him famous..