Les Vignes folles

Alfred Busquet appears in the Anthologie poétique published by Lemerre in 1887: “Appreciated by serious critics, enjoyed by scholars and connoisseurs, this fine work never reached the wider public, whose approval its author disdained, but it immediately established Alfred Busquet among the ranks of poets.” He “was a shy, dreamy but not idle poet; he avoided noise and, with a rather rare literary modesty, dreaded publicity.”

Les Vignes folles is Glatigny’s first book. Born in Lillebonne in 1839, educated at the collège de Bernay and briefly a gendarme, Glatigny then left a position at the commercial court to become a typographer in Pont-Audemer, working for Alfred Canel, a former deputy, lawyer and owner of the town’s principal weekly newspaper. Canel quickly noticed the young man’s literary gifts and encouraged him to write. A first work, Les Bourgeois de Pont-Audemer au XVIIe siècle, was printed by Canel in a handful of copies (only one is known). Passing through Alençon, Glatigny met Auguste Poulet-Malassis, who gave him a freshly printed copy of Théodore de Banville’s Odes funambulesques. It was a revelation for Glatigny, who became an “admirable rhymer and forger of rhythms” in Banville’s mold, to whom he dedicated this first book.