Rare pamphlet printed on laid paper for the inauguration of the monument to José-Maria de Heredia in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Signed presentation inscription: “Au poëte A[uguste] Garnier, hommage admiratif et sympathique.”
This slim pamphlet brings together the four sonnets composed by Armand Godoy in homage to José-Maria de Heredia, recited by Suzanne Segond-Weber, a member of the Comédie-Française, at the inauguration of the monument erected to the poet in the Jardin du Luxembourg on 17 October 1925.
Armand Godoy was himself born in Havana in 1880, thirty-eight years after Heredia, who was born near Santiago de Cuba. Like his illustrious predecessor, he chose French as his poetic language. The Godoy archives confirm the scale of the undertaking: more than 400 letters and documents relating to the subscription, execution and inauguration of the monument were preserved in his library. This collection included lists of subscribers, invoices, photographs, plans and correspondence with the Heredia family, the sculptor Victor Ségoffin, and numerous literary figures, testifying to the poetic and patrimonial bond linking Godoy to the man whose memory he considered himself one of the guardians of. This devotion would later be recognized by the Académie française, which awarded him the Prix Heredia for his poetic work in 1928.
The volume was presented to Auguste-Pierre Garnier (1885–1966), poet, bibliophile and publisher, heir to the house of Garnier Frères, which he took over in 1911. He himself published several collections of poetry and owned a large library.