Certains : G. Moreau, Degas, Chéret, Whistler, Rops

Huysmans’s letters to Prins from 1888 show that the writer was dissatisfied with his publisher. Other houses, such as Stock, which had approached him two years earlier, were courting him — notably Quantin, who wished to publish an illustrated book on Belgium and Holland with better terms. As Huysmans wrote on 2 January: “The trouble is that I have a contract with Stock”; “This Stock is a complete fool. He no longer even makes the slightest effort to promote my work. I am half angry with him. I must get him to agree to break our contract. To do this — and to annoy him, since he has not honored his commitments — I am going to write a volume of art criticism” (letters to Arij Prins, 2 January and 10 March 1888). That volume of art criticism became Certains, published by Stock at the beginning of 1889. Contrary to Huysmans’s hopes, however, it did not lead the publisher to break with his author, for it proved a commercial success: within a few weeks it sold more than 1,200 copies, “which is unheard of for a book of art criticism” (letter to Prins, 26 November 1889). Author and publisher seem finally to have found their footing, and Huysmans a new field of critical writing in which he would excel.

Copy inscribed to his childhood friend Jules Bobin, a bibliophile and Huysmans’s executor. “[He] had among his friends a great bibliophile, Jules Bobin, who had assembled an immense collection of old and rare books. Among these books were many concerning occultism, liturgy and religious curiosities, subjects dear to Huysmans, who often had to search through his friend’s shelves” (Bulletin de la société J.-K. Huysmans, March 1929). Nicknamed “Le Professeur” by those close to him, Bobin was honored by Huysmans with the dedication of “La Rue de la Chine,” among his Croquis parisiens (1880).