Les Flèches d’or

Born in Lillebonne in 1839, educated at the collège de Bernay and briefly employed as a gendarme, Glatigny then left a position at the commercial court to become a typographer at Pont-Audemer, working for Alfred Canel, a former deputy, lawyer and owner of the town’s principal weekly newspaper. Canel quickly noticed his literary gifts and encouraged him to write. His first work, Les Bourgeois de Pont-Audemer au XVIIe siècle, was printed by Canel in a handful of copies (only one known) and brought to the attention of Blanchereau, director of a small traveling theater, who staged it for a few days on the square near the banks of the Lisle. Glatigny was soon drawn to the stage and excelled at improvisation, but his wit earned him the hostility of the imperial administration and the police. Passing through Alençon, Glatigny met Poulet-Malassis: the beginning of a strong and lasting friendship, and a revelation for Glatigny, who became an “admirable rhymer and forger of rhythms,” following the model of Banville and Leconte de Lisle, to whom he dedicated his first two books.

A fine copy, luxuriously bound later by Georges Canape (1864–1940), born the very year Les Flèches d’or appeared. He succeeded his father in 1894, inheriting the equipment of Belz-Niédrée, passage Dauphine, and produced deluxe bindings for leading bibliophiles. He added a gilding workshop in 1899 — hence the signature Canape R(elieur) D(oreur) — winning a silver medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle and receiving wide recognition at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs. Henri Mercher later took over his gilding workshop.

Some scattered foxing throughout the volume.

Thieme, 4475; Clouzot, p. 131; Oberlé, 1018.